


Angels of the Silences

by EAWeek



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Timelines, F/M, Murder Mystery, Romance, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 04:47:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 61,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3882856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EAWeek/pseuds/EAWeek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tenth Doctor goes undercover at a small American college to unravel the mystery behind a brutal murder, but he’s not the only incognito time-traveler on campus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Angels of the Silences--Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> CONTINUITY DISCLAIMER: This story was first written and posted in 2008 at fanfiction.net. I'm cross-posting here. Since then, seasons five and six of Doctor Who have rendered some of this content alt-timeline/ non-canonical. I like this story as it stands, and I’m not going to make myself crazy trying to perpetually retcon it to fit into the show’s evolving canon. Thanks for understanding!

Title: **Angels of the Silences**

Author: E.A. Week

E-mail: e.a.week at gmail-dot-com; also on LiveJournal as eaweek.

Summary:  The tenth Doctor goes undercover at a small American college to unravel the mystery behind a brutal murder, but he’s not the only incognito time-traveler on campus.

Category: _Doctor Who_.

Distribution: Feel free to link to this story to other websites, but **please** drop me at least a brief e-mail and let me know you've done this.

Feedback: Comment are always welcome! Loved it? Hated it? Leave a review, shoot me an email or a PM and let me know why!

Disclaimers: Copyrights to all characters in this story belong to their respective creators, production companies, and studios. I'm just borrowing them, honest! 

Story rating:  This story is rated M for language, sexuality, and adult themes (“R” in movie terms).

Credit where credit is due: The story title and all chapter titles are shamelessly stolen from Counting Crows.

Possible spoilers: This story takes place after the fourth season of the new _Doctor Who_ series.

 

Prologue

_August and Everything After_

Two events shocked Charles Holland on that late summer day, and Lucille Cavanaugh’s murder was the least of them.

After talking to the police, he and his wife Anna had retreated to Tomasso’s, their new favorite restaurant, that charming Italian trattoria in the center of town.  They sat in numb silence, listening to the musical splash of water in the wishing well, only breaking out of their stupor to order food and coffee.

Part of his anguish was personal.  He’d known Lucille for over thirty years; she was one of his best friends and most trusted colleagues.  Petty aggravation compounded his grief: classes at Ethan Allen College would begin in less than a week, and hiring a competent biology instructor at the last moment—at a small, rural college—would prove challenging, if not impossible.  He knew he should start searching right away, but the damned unholy speed of it all had left him too stunned to speak, let alone act.

A waitress brought out their food, and Anna murmured a quiet thanks.  Charles poked at his plate, unable to muster much appetite.

Movement distracted him: Tomasso swept past, beaming, escorting a customer to a table on the other side of the dining room.  Charles glanced up, then did a double-take, eyes goggling behind his bifocals.

“Oh, my God,” he blurted.

“What?” asked Anna.

Charles couldn’t stop staring.  “That man,” he said.

“Who?”  Anna turned her head to follow the line of her husband’s gaze.

“That one over there, with Tomasso.”  Charles lowered his voice.  “I know him.”

“Oh?”

“He was a friend of my father’s.  I met him when I was ten, at Dad’s lab in Palo Alto.”

Anna turned back to Charles, eyebrows raised in skepticism.  “He can’t be more than what, forty?  How could he have been your father’s friend?”

“It’s him… I know it’s him.”

“Charlie… you must be mistaken.”

Charles kept staring across the room, dazed.  When the newcomer drew out a pair of black-rimmed glasses to study a newspaper, Charles felt his skin break out in crawling gooseflesh.

“Jesus,” he whispered.  He got to his feet, unsteady, and despite Anna’s quiet, sharp protest, made his way across the room.

It felt like a window had opened straight into the past.  The man hadn’t changed in the slightest; he even wore the same suit Charles remembered: bright blue, with a pattern of burgundy pinstripes.  On the seat beside him lay folded a tan overcoat; Charles could just see a bit of the indigo lining.  The freckles, the thick eyebrows, the long hands—everything was exactly the same.

Noticing Charles at last, the man looked up, his gaze mild and curious.  He didn’t speak, so Charles screwed up his courage and said, “Doctor?”

“I’m sorry; have we met?”  Even the voice was just as Charles remembered it, a pleasant, youthful tenor.

“Oh, my God.  It _is_ you.”  Charles slid into the seat opposite the Doctor, glad to be off his feet.  “You probably don’t remember me.  I’m Charles Holland—we met in my father’s lab back in fifty-eight—”

“Charlie Holland!” the man exclaimed in such a loud voice that a couple of diners nearby turned their heads to stare.  Offering a hand to Charles, the Doctor said, “Of course I remember you!”  He beamed a wide, happy smile.  “How are you, Charlie?”

“Not as well as you, by the look of things,” Charles responded, his laugh shaky.  “How did you—do you mind if I ask what’s your secret?”

“Oh, you know, diet and exercise, vitamins, sunscreen.”  The Doctor waved off the question with a breezy gesture of one hand.

Tomasso’s pretty daughter appeared then with a tray on her shoulder.  She set a couple of dishes on the table, glanced at Charles, then at the Doctor with a pointed, questioning look.

“It’s all right,” he murmured, smiling.  “Thank you.”

The girl departed.  Charles sat watching the Doctor eat, still trying to absorb the staggering implications: this man didn’t seem to have aged a day since 1958. 

The Doctor handled his utensils like a European, using the knife to push food onto the back of his fork.  “This is delicious,” he said.  “Try some?”

“No, thank you.”  Charles lowered his voice.  “You’re not any older.”

“Oh, I am,” the Doctor smiled, and there was something in his eyes that chilled Charles to his core.  “I’m much older.”  He patted the newspaper folded beside him.  “Are you the Charles Holland mentioned in this article?”

Charles picked up the paper, a late edition of the town crier, with a headline story on Lucille’s death.

“Yes,” he said.  “That’s me.  I wish it wasn’t.”

“Academic Vice-President of Ethan Allen College?  You’ve done well for yourself, Charlie.”

“Thank you.  That’s Anna, my wife, over there.”

“Hello!”  The Doctor waved at Anna; she gave him a faint smile and an incredulous nod in return.  “Any children?”

“Two.  They’re grown up, now.”

“Grandchildren?”

“Not yet.”

Growing serious, the Doctor said, “What happened to her?”

“I wish I knew.  Doctor—Lucille didn’t have an enemy in the world.  Why would anyone—how could they—she was a scientist, an old woman for God’s sake—”  Charles stopped; he could feel himself shaking.

“She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”  The Doctor put a gentle hand on Charlie’s arm.

“I talked to the police.  Nobody knows what happened.  They found her body in the woods, just—just _dumped_ there, like a bag of garbage.”

“I’m sorry.  Cause of death?”

Fighting tears, Charles said, “Someone used a knife on her.  She was mutilated.”  He got control of himself.  “She was naked, but the police said there was no sign of sexual assault.  They have to wait for test results, obviously, but they don’t think she was raped.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Could you—can you—I know you helped me father with whatever it was—that thing—”

The Doctor shook his head.  “That was something fairly extraordinary,” he said.  “This sounds like a homicide—sordid, but it’s best handled by your local police.”

“It’s not ordinary,” Charles insisted.

“What makes you say that?”

“Listen to this.”

Charles pulled out his cell phone, dialed into his home voice mail, and handed over the phone.  He watched the Doctor’s face as the message played out.  Charles didn’t have to listen in: he had the message memorized.

_“Hello, Charlie, it’s me.  I need to speak to you as soon as possible.  There’s something going on, something that I think impacts the entire town.  I’d go to the police, but this is such an unusual thing, I’m not sure what they’d make of it—”_   A brief laugh, then Lucille had continued _, “I know you’ll think I’m out of my mind, Charlie, so I’d rather talk to you about this in person.  Please call me as soon as you can.  Or stop by my house—I’m not sure if I trust the phones any more.  All right, goodbye now.”_

The Doctor frowned at the cell phone for a moment, then replayed the message.  “You have no idea what this was in reference to?”

“None.  We hadn’t spoken for a few weeks.  Anna and I were out playing golf when the message came in.”  Charles winced.  “I had my cellular turned off.  I could kick myself for it, now.”

“Don’t.  You had no way of knowing.  Did the police hear this?”

“Of course.  I’m sure they must think she figured she was on to a child pornography network or something.  They’re looking at her computer as well.”

“What kind of research did she do?”

“Field biology.  Animal behavior.  Ornithology.”

“Nothing dangerous or controversial?”

“No, nothing.”

The Doctor thought the situation over.  He glanced around the restaurant and said, “Is there anywhere we could go that’s more private?”

“Sure,” Charles exhaled.  “My house—it’s a five minute drive from here.”

He went and collected Anna, introducing her to the Doctor.  Anna left money on the table for their barely-touched food, tossing some loose change into the wishing well on her way out.

(ii)

The Doctor declined a ride back to the house, saying he’d meet up with them there.  He must have flown, because when Charles and Anna arrived, they found him in their garden, examining the late summer flowers.

Inside the house, Zulu set up a loud racket, but the Doctor won him over with a few words and a friendly scratching.  The big dog fell quiet, and his tail began to swish back and forth as he sniffed the newcomer’s hands.

“There’s a good boy,” the Doctor said.  “I know, I smell a bit odd to you, don’t I?”  He asked Charles, “Rhodesian ridgeback?”

“He’s three,” said Charles.  “Our first grandchild, Anna likes to say.  Don’t let all the barking fool you—whenever we have a thunderstorm, he hides under one of the beds.  Can I get you anything to eat or drink?”

“No thanks, I’m fine.”

The Doctor made himself at home in the Hollands’ living room, flopping down into one of the big chairs.

“You said the body was mutilated,” he began.  “In what way?”

“Cuts on one arm,” said Charles.  “And a big one to the throat.  That’s what killed her.  That’s all they know, without an autopsy.”

“Had she been acting strangely prior to her death?”

“Not at all,” said Charles.

“What about the town itself, the college?  Anything out of the ordinary?  Even the smallest thing might mean something.”

Charles sat for a few moments, searching his memory.

“Nothing,” he said at last.  “At least, nothing that comes to mind.”

“Anna?” the Doctor said.

She shook her head.  “If anything, it’s been even more sleepy than summer usually is around here.”

“We don’t even offer summer courses,” Charles laughed.  “The college runs on a skeleton crew.  There were a couple of conferences in June and July, but it’s been deserted since then.  Most of the faculty and staff take vacation time.  It’s busier now—we’re getting ready for the school year.”

“Have the students come back yet?”

“In about five days,” said Charles.  “The res life staff are back on campus.”

The Doctor rubbed his chin for a moment.  “No cults, nothing like that?”

“Not that I know of,” said Charles.  “I’ve lived in this area for decades now, and we’ve never had anything more unusual than some pagan tree-huggers.  A couple years back, some of them were found dancing naked in a field at the summer solstice.”  He laughed.  “That’s about as scandalous as it gets.”

“Did you actually see the body?” asked the Doctor.

“Enough for me to identify her,” said Charles.  Even the memory made him feel sick.  “They just showed me her face.”

“Where’s she being kept?”

“The medical examiner’s office.”

The Doctor stood.  “I’d like to have a look.”

“You can’t just walk in there,” Charles protested.

Flashing a grin, the Doctor said, “I can walk in anywhere.  Come with me.”  Anna began to protest, but the Doctor said, “We’ll be back in five minutes.”  He pointed to the grandfather clock, whose hands indicated 6:25 PM.  “Literally, five minutes.”

Charles followed the odd man out of the house—not to the driveway, but to the garden.

“Where’re we going?”

“This way.”  The Doctor vanished around the back of the tool shed.  Feeling uneasy now, Charles followed.  He blinked, staring up at a tall blue box, about the size of a phone booth.

“How’d this thing get in my yard?”

Grinning, the Doctor opened one of the doors with a key.  “Come on inside.”

Dubious, Charles followed, and once through the doorway, he made an inarticulate noise, grabbing onto a nearby railing for support.  “My God!” he blurted.  “What the hell is this?”

“Welcome to the TARDIS.”  The Doctor shut the wooden door and bounded to the center of the vast room.  Charles stared around, unable to take it all in: the curved, soaring pillars, the glowing lights, the endless preponderance of unfamiliar machinery.

“What—how does all this fit into that box?”

“Relative dimensions.  Now, hang onto something.”  The Doctor flipped a few switches on the circular control panel, and the entire structure began to shake in violent tremors.  Charles tightened his grip on the railing.

“What’s happening?” he yelled.

“We’re moving!”  After a moment, there was another mighty rattle and thump, and with a shudder, the incredible machine went still.

“Here we are.”  The Doctor brushed past Charles and opened the door.

Outside lay not the sunny garden, but a darkened room.  The Doctor switched on a flashlight, casting the yellow beam around.  Charles spotted scientific apparatus, gleaming metal.  The air was cold, redolent of formaldehyde.

“We’re in the morgue?”

“Just a quick hop.”

“How’d we get here so fast?”

The Doctor ignored the question.  He left the door of his machine standing open and strode across the darkened morgue, heading straight for the refrigerated body drawers.  Charles followed, turning back to stare behind him: just a plain blue wooden box on the outside—but inside, so much more.  His mind reeled from the staggering implications.

“Your father never told you, did he?”  The Doctor was opening drawers one by one, pausing at times to unzip body bags.  “Lucille, is that her name?”

“Lucille Cavanaugh.”  Charles hovered back, not watching.  The sight of morbid flesh didn’t bother him; he only hated looking at the husk of his dead friend, no longer lit from within by Lucille’s intelligence and spirit, the empty shell a mockery of the woman she’d been.  “My father never told me what?”

“Anything about me.”

“Just that you were a scientist, and those two women were your assistants.  One of them was a doctor, I remember that.  She was the first black person I’d ever met.”

“Really?”

“Whitebread suburbia in the 1950s,” Charles laughed.  He looked at the clock.  “It says 2:30—it must be broken.”

“No, that’s right.  We’ve come forward in time, to the small hours of tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, please.”

“It’s true.”  The Doctor glanced back over his shoulder.  “I’m an alien, Charlie.  An alien who travels in time and space.”

“Do I look like some kind of…”  Charles trailed off, turning to stare at the blue box.  “In that thing?”

“Yes.”

“You travel in time as well as space?  In a wooden phone booth?”

“A police call box,” the Doctor huffed.

“What—why—”  Charles began to sweat.  “But you—you—”  Pieces came back to him, memories of how excited his father had been by the Doctor’s presence, his constant references to “that amazing man,” how he’d liked and admired and almost worshipped the stranger in the brown coat.

“Why’d Dad never tell me?” he asked.

“You were a child.”  The Doctor had found the right drawer.  “He might’ve thought you’d be too excited to keep it a secret.  I’ll need a light over here,” he said, changing the topic without preamble or apology.

Charles found a light on a stand and pushed it over, trying not to look too closely.  The Doctor adjusted the light and bent over Lucille’s body, examining her left arm with a slender metal tube that glowed blue at one end.  Charles jolted, remembering the thing from those memorable few days so long ago: a sonic screwdriver, the Doctor had called it, a nifty gadget that he’d used for just about everything.

To distract himself, he asked, “What happened to your two friends?”  He recalled that he’d liked the young black physician, who’d talked to him about science, more than the loudmouthed, bossy redhead, who’d reminded him too much of his fifth grade teacher.

“They went back to London.”  The Doctor drew from his pocket a pair of 3-D glasses and perched them on the narrow bridge of his nose.

“Could you get any less high-tech?” snorted Charles.

“There’s bite marks on her arm with a kind of residual energy on them… but nowhere else on her body.”

“What kind of energy?”

“The energy that’s present when something crosses a dimensional wall.”  The Doctor straightened up and stood for a moment with his chin thrust forward, sucking his teeth while he ruminated.  “Strange,” he muttered.

“Bite marks?”  Charles shifted on uneasy feet.

“Oh, yes.  These little triangular marks near the inside of her elbow.  Very faint, as if whatever bit her didn’t have much strength.  The rest of the damage was done with a knife.”  The Doctor looked grim and said.  “But there’s no energy traces on those cut marks—only in the bites.”  He removed the 3-D glasses and returned them to a pocket.  Charles remembered how the Doctor had carried an endless assortment of items in those pockets, a source of continual delight to him as a child.

“So, what bit her?”  Charles watched the Doctor zip up the body bag and push the metal drawer closed.

“Good question.”  The Doctor gestured Charles back into the blue box.  “Something with teeth but not much strength, something that hopped into this reality from another dimension…”

“Another dimension?  Are you kidding?”  But a second look around the interior of the incredible machine convinced Charles that his father’s friend was serious.  “Okay, you’re not kidding.  I guess I better get used to that.  So, she was killed by an alien?”  Despite the events of the previous spring, Charles felt like an idiot even asking the question.

“Possibly.  It also might be a terrestrial species from Earth’s past.”  The Doctor pulled some levers on the control panel.

“Like a dinosaur?” Charles shouted above the noise.

“If that were the case, I’d expect to see more damage, not just a couple of nibble marks.”

“A baby dinosaur?”

Laughing, the Doctor said, “Any reports of strange reptiles in town?”

“I don’t know… maybe that’s why Lucille wanted to talk to me.”

“It’s possible, but…”

“But what?”

“I’ve observed a lot of dinosaurs, Charlie—I know what a carnivore’s attack looks like.  Whatever killed Lucille, I don’t think it was a dinosaur.”

“You’ve seen dinosaurs?”

“I’ve never had a traveling companion from Earth who didn’t want to go back and have a look at them.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that when I was ten?” Charles almost shrieked.  “I’d have demanded a tour!”

The Doctor grinned and a moment later, the vessel came to a rumbling halt.

“Here we are.”  The Doctor opened the door to the box and gestured Charlie outside.

“So, why don’t you go back in time and figure out what killed Lucille?  Or hell, just go back and stop her from dying?”

“I can’t do that,” the Doctor said, standing outside the door.  “Some events are fixed; others are in flux, and your friend’s death, sadly, is a fixed point.  Besides, I’ve been in town a few days, and if I went back, I’d risk running into myself, which is a paradox and causes all sorts of problems.”

Charlie’s shoulders slumped.  “I guess you can’t go back and undo every shitty thing that’s ever happened in this world, can you?”

“This or any other world,” the Doctor said.  A profound sadness lay behind those words.

They were back in the Hollands’ yard, the garden bright and sun-dappled, sweet-scented, such a change from the dark, gloomy confines of the morgue that Charles stood blinking in shock for a few moments.

Inside the house, the grandfather clock had just struck the half-hour.  Both hands pointed down: it was 6:30, exactly five minutes after they’d left.  Anna stared at the two men, but said nothing; she’d grill Charles later.

“Was anything unusual found among Lucille’s effects?”  The Doctor settled himself once again in the armchair.  “Any notes, files on her computer, things like that?”

“If there were, the police didn’t say anything to me.  And they wouldn’t, if there’s anything they need to keep as evidence.  But Lucille’s office is a rat warren—so’s her house; her work was her life.  If she’d scribbled a note to herself, anything like that, it’d be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.”

“What about her family?”

“She has two kids, both living out of state.  Her husband died fifteen years ago.  Her kids will have to go through her things and sell the house.”  This thought caused a fresh wave of grief to wash over Charles, and he struggled to keep his composure.

“You know them well?”

“Pretty well.”

“Ask them to tell you if they find anything out of the ordinary.”

“Sure.”  Charles asked, “So… do you have any idea who killed her?  Or what?”

“No.”  The Doctor looked abstract, far away.  “I need to think about it.  My greatest worry is that whatever killed her could strike again, with as little warning.  And if it crossed a dimensional wall to get here, that could be dangerous for any number of other reasons.”

Inspiration struck Charles.  “If you’d like to go undercover for a few months, I have the perfect alibi for you.”

“What’s that?”

“I need a biology instructor to replace Lucille.  Three courses in the fall and three in the spring, plus some thesis advisees.  They’re smart kids—they won’t give you any trouble.”

The Doctor grew cagey.  “That’s an entire year.”

“Eight months,” Charles countered.  “September to May, with a month off at Christmas.  You haven’t aged a day in fifty years—please don’t tell me time is an issue for you.”

The Doctor looked taken aback.

“We can pay you—”

“I don’t need money.”

“Well, at least a living stipend.  You can live in one of the college-owned apartments for nothing.  Hell, you can even use my old Honda for the year if you need a set of wheels.  And it would put you on campus, in town, right in with Lucille’s colleagues, people who knew her.  You could hardly ask for better cover.”

“No committees,” the Doctor said.  “I’m rubbish on committees.”

“All right,” Charles laughed.  “No committees.  You’ll do it, then?”

“One year, no more.”

Charles took his feet.  “Thank you,” he said.  “I can’t thank you enough.”  Growing awkward, he asked, “What should people call you?  I can’t exactly introduce you as ‘the Doctor,’ can I?  The campus is full of people with doctorates.”

The Doctor stood and took Charlie’s hand.  With a firm shake, he smiled, “Dr. John Smith, pleased to meet you.  When do I start?”

**To be continued…**


	2. Angels of the Silences--Chapter One

Chapter One

_American Girls_

The Concord Trailways bus rumbled to a halt in the center of town, and Cassie Sterlin hopped up to her feet, messenger bag slung around her shoulders, twitching with impatience while the students in front of her disembarked.  At last she stood outside in the bright mountain sunshine, the heat of late summer lingering, still a shock after the winter she’d left behind in the southern hemisphere.  Kids chattered while the driver opened the underbelly of the bus, and one by one, the students fished out their luggage.  Cassie made a quick survey of their faces, but these were kids she didn’t recognize—youngsters, most of them, kids who would have been freshmen the year before, when Cassie had been abroad in Australia.

Her body still had the heady, disoriented sense that came from having crossed so many time zones so quickly.  There had been the flight from Perth to Sydney, the flight from Sydney to Los Angeles, then from LA to New York, where she’d spent a hectic twenty-four hours at home, then there had been the flight from La Guardia to Manchester, and finally, the bus ride into Vermont.  At least she’d have a few days to recover before classes began.

When the crowd cleared a little, Cassie retrieved her bicycle and her big backpack.  She stashed the messenger bag with her laptop into one of the bike’s saddlebags, strapped on the backpack, and swung a leg over the bicycle.  The other kids observed her brisk efficiency with envious eyes; some of them were already piling into taxi cabs.  Cassie waved and smiled, then pushed off with one foot and started pedaling toward campus.

(ii)

When Cassie had left Ethan Allen College at the end of her sophomore year, Grover Hall had been half-finished, a pile of metal beams and exposed pipes.  Now it stood complete, its red brick façade blending so well with the rest of campus that it might have stood there for a hundred years; only the lack of creeping ivy gave its newness away.  Cassie locked her bicycle to a bike rack out front.

Inside the main entry hall, she greeted a harried-looking RA, who looked up Cassie’s name in a box of small brown envelopes containing keys to the dorm rooms.

“Sterlin, there you are, 302b.”  She passed an envelope to Cassie.  “You can get your zap card at Facilities.”

“Thanks!”

Grover Hall had been built with an elevator, for ADA compliance, but Cassie was too impatient to wait, and she sprinted up to the third floor.  In a cozy southwest alcove she found suite 302, a cluster of four single rooms, her own name on the door to 302b.  Cassie unlocked the door, almost dancing with excitement, finding within a spacious room with a tall window and new furniture in pale pine.  The room was wired for cable TV and Internet access, the desk designed for good ergonomics, light years ahead of the antique dormitories where Cassie had lived her first two years on campus.  She removed her backpack and plugged her laptop into the wall socket, checking her e-mail.  Still no messages from Dr. Cavanaugh.

It didn’t look like either Chelsea or Exa had arrived yet, so Cassie bounded out of the room to get her ID card and see about retrieving her trunks and boxes from the storage room of Bakken Hall, her sophomore year dormitory.

(iii)

Moving her belongings from one dorm to another, without benefit of a car was hot, sweaty work, but Cassie hoped the exertion would help her sleep that night, help get her body’s rhythm back into the correct time zone.  A strapping male RA helped Cassie move her biggest trunk; she smiled and tried to chat him up, but he was only a sophomore, not interested.

Footsteps and a loud voice proclaimed a new arrival, and a moment later, Exa von Alt appeared: petite and raven-haired, sophisticated after a year in Europe.

“Cassie!” she shrieked, running to embrace her friend.  “Ohmigod, when’d you get back?  Did you get my text?”

“Uh…”  Cassie realized she hadn’t checked her phone for a couple of hours.  “Sorry; I’ve been schlepping boxes.”  She waved at Exa’s parents.  “Hi.”

Exa’s room, 302a, was almost identical to Cassie’s.  “Any sign of Chelsea?”

“Not yet...” Cassie was checking her Nokia.  “Wait, here’s a text—she’ll be here around eight.”  Of the three friends, Chelsea lived closest to the college and was usually the last to arrive.  While Exa and her parents carried bags and crates into the room, Cassie thumbed a quick response.

“Who’s our fourth?”  Exa pointed to the door of 302d.  “No name.”

Cassie flagged down a female RA, who was herding some new students to their rooms.

“Hi, who’s in 302d?” she asked.

The RA checked the photocopied list in her hands.  After a moment or two of hesitation, the girl asked, “Did you know Tracy Bannerman?”

Cassie and Exa glanced at each other, shaking their heads.

“Nope,” Cassie provided.  Studying the RA’s expression, she said, “Why, what’s wrong?”

“She was abroad in London last year, and she died.  In the—you know, in the attack.”

Cassie felt some of the bright cheer go out of her day.  “Oh.”

“So, the room’s empty, for now.”

“Okay.”

The RA departed with her charges, and Exa said, “Well, there’s a happy note to start the year on.”

Cassie slumped against the wall.  “I wonder how many other kids aren’t coming back?”

“Dunno,” said Exa.  “Depends where they were in June.”

Mrs. von Alt asked Cassie, “Is your family all right?”

“They hid in the basement ‘till it was over,” Cassie told her.  “My grandfather built it as a shelter—my great-grandmother made him do it.  She always said someday something would attack us from the sky.”

“A woman ahead of her time,” Mrs. von Alt joked, with no real humor.

“We’re lucky we live in the Adirondacks,” her husband added.  “Nobody bothers you there.  Were you all right Down Under, Cassie?”

“Yeah, I was out at a research station in the bush.  The cities got hit the worst.”

“On the upside, careers in science are booming,” Exa said, giving Cassie a friendly poke.  “Especially astronomy and the defense industry.”

“No, thank you,” said Cassie, wrinkling her nose.

“Is that everything, Exa?”  Mrs. von Alt nodded toward her daughter’s pile of luggage.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“We need to get going,” her father said.  “It’s a long drive home.”

After Exa had seen her parents off and returned upstairs, she said, “They hate talking about the attack, like it’ll go away if they don’t pay attention to it.”

“I’ve been doing the same thing.”  Cassie had plugged her iPod into a set of small speakers, and music filled the room.

“Something like that could happen again,” argued Exa.

“What, the whole planet being moved to another part of space?”  Cassie brushed a fine strand of brown hair from her eyes.  “Sorry for being an ostrich, but I’m happy to pretend it’ll never happen again.”

“Did you actually see...?”

“See what?”

“One of those _things_ ,” Exa said.

“No, they didn’t bother with the outback—why should they?  There’s nothing important there.  We saw the ships, though, flying overhead.”

“God, that was fucking creepy,” Exa shivered.  “I’m glad I was in Vienna—France and Germany got hit a lot harder.  We saw everything on TV, though, ‘till communications went down.”  They fell quiet, each reliving those nightmarish two days.  For Cassie, the worst part had been the absence of sunlight, the perpetual darkness.

“When we started moving back, what’d you think?” asked Exa.

“That it was the end... maybe that the planet was breaking up.”  Cassie shuddered, despite the warm August sunlight streaming in through the west-facing windows.  “Me and the other kids were holding onto each other and waiting.”  At the time, Cassie’s incoherent thoughts had centered on her far-away parents, full of anguish that doomsday had found them half a world away from each other.

“Yeah, same here, pretty much.”  Exa said, “We were under tables and in doorframes, and then bam, there was daylight again and the ground stopped moving.”

“It was night down in Oz, but we could see the moon at least, and we knew we were home again.”

“Home!” Exa shouted, bouncing up and down.  “We have a bigger definition of it now, huh?”

“No shit,” Cassie said, and they both laughed until they couldn’t breathe.

(iv)

Dinner that night in the dining commons was somehow loud and subdued at the same time.  The new freshmen made a lot of noise—nervous, excited jabber—but beneath the energy, sadness and worry persisted.  Cassie and Exa learned of more students who weren’t returning, among them kids in their own class.  While the college itself had been spared, there had been casualties among juniors studying abroad, and still more students whose parents had withdrawn them from Ethan Allen, transferring them to colleges closer to home.

“Maybe someone should offer a seminar on alien invasions,” Cassie joked when they were walking back to Grover.

“I’ve heard this wasn’t the first time,” said Exa.  “There’s whole branches of the military, special ops, that do nothing but deal with alien attacks.”

“That sounds so stupid,” said Cassie.  “Roswell, Area 52, all that shit.”

“No, it’s true.”

Loud Celtic folk music announced the arrival of Chelsea Zariello, and Cassie bolted down the hall, extraterrestrials forgotten for the moment.

“When’d you get here?” Cassie demanded, hugging her friend.  Exa piled on top of them.

“Like fifteen minutes ago.  We ate on the way—you just missed the ‘rentals.”  Unlike tiny Exa and athletic Cassie, Chelsea was a pre-Raphaelite goddess: tall and curvaceous, with miles of wavy blond hair.  In the hallway lay piles of suitcases and boxes full of art supplies.  Her portable easel leaned against one wall.

“How was RISD?” asked Exa, pronouncing the acronym “ris-dee,” as everyone did. Chelsea, an art major, had spent her junior year at the Rhode Island School of Design.

“Wicked fun,” said Chelsea.  “I hated to leave.”

Cassie had picked up Chelsea’s big sketchpad, to see what her friend had drawn recently.  The first piece, in vivid pastels, were those twenty-six planets, looming in a black sky.

“You drew this?” Cassie sputtered.  “Why?”

“Why not?”

“It was the end of the fucking world, and you were out there drawing pictures?” Exa nearly shrieked.

“Sure, why not?  I got some great photos, too—” Chelsea pulled out her digital camera and showed her friends a slideshow of circular metal saucers spinning through the night.

“Jesus, Chel,” said Cassie, feeling sick.  “What were you thinking?”

Eyes misty and blue, Chelsea said, “I knew we’d be okay.”

“How?”

“Dunno,” she shrugged.  “I wanted to get pictures of everything, as much as possible—it was like the most phenomenal thing that ever happened in history! Providence wasn’t hit, thank God. Boston lost a few buildings—but as my friend Joe likes to say, at least they spared Fenway Park.”

“Hell, yeah, let’s keep our priorities straight!” Exa snarked.

“Most of the damage in the northeast was to New York City and Washington,” said Chelsea.

“Centers of government and communication,” said Exa.  “Makes sense, though it’s scary to think how smart those monsters are.  Were.  Whatever.”

“There wasn’t anything to do, so I set up my easel—if nothing else, it was a way to pass time ‘till the planet got moved back where it belongs.”  She said this so casually, as if Earth had been temporarily misplaced. Chelsea flipped page after page in her sketchpad, showing her friends the drawings she’d made of the alien worlds.  “I really liked this one, right here—wasn’t it pretty?  It kinda looks like a woman holding her head in her hands.”

“I had a different view, down in Australia,” Cassie reminded her.  “I don’t remember seeing that one.”

“You didn’t take any pictures?” Chelsea asked her.  She sounded shocked, as if any sensible person’s reaction to impending doom would be to document the event.

“No, I was too busy trying to contact my parents and see if they were okay.”

“Sorry,” said Chelsea.  “I kinda thought, if I’m gonna die, it’ll be with a paintbrush in my hand.  I’m weird like that.”  From 302c, Enya breathed and cooed over synthesized strings and woodwinds.  The song stopped, and in the silence that followed before the next track began, Chelsea took the sketchpad from Cassie.  “Guess we should unpack?”

Exa said, “Yeah… apocalypse or no apocalypse, classes start in three days.”

(v)

By the next morning, Cassie still hadn’t heard from Dr. Cavanaugh, so she swung past the Klugman Science Center on her way back from her morning run.  Klugman consisted of a cluster of old and new constructions, all hooked together in a mazelike complex.  Dr. Cavanaugh’s office was on the first floor of Hogan Hall, the oldest building—Cassie could never remember the number, but it was the first office on the left, past the fire doors.

She thought she must have made a mistake when she saw the empty shelves, the bare desk, and she kept going down the hall.  Only when she reached the central staircase did she realize she’d gone too far, and turned back, puzzled.  Room 104—she’d never noticed the number in the past, because the little placard always had been covered with papers.  The door and the office now stood stripped bare, giving off a faint whiff of disinfectant.

A young man in shirtsleeves and sat behind the desk, staring at a computer monitor, tapping the keyboard with two fingers.

“Uh, hi… did Dr. Cavanaugh move to another office?”

The man removed a pair of glasses and asked, “Who are you?”

“Cassie Sterlin—one of her advisees.”

“Cassie… short for Cassandra?”  His face was apprehensive.

“Cassiopeia,” she winced.  “Are you new?”

“John Smith.  I just started two days ago.”  He stood, offering a hand.  “Why don’t you have a seat?”

Cassie had a sinking, dreadful feeling then, almost as bad as when she’d looked up at the sky to see neither sun nor moon nor stars, but only the massive shapes of unfamiliar planets, the gut-churning sense that everything solid and comforting and dependable in life had been yanked away from her.

“Did nobody tell you?” he asked, sitting opposite Cassie.

“Tell me what?”

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “I thought they’d have told the students.  Lucille Cavanaugh died three days ago.”

Cassie could only stare at him, stunned.

“What happened?  Was she—?”  It couldn’t have been the alien attack; that had been in June.  “Was she sick?”

“She was murdered.  I’m sorry.”

“By who?” Cassie demanded.  “Who’d kill an old woman?”

“I don’t know.”

“So you’re—what are you doing here?”

“Dr. Holland hired me for the year.  To replace her.”

The walls of the room were closing around Cassie, like a suffocating prison.  She stood so quickly that the wooden chair toppled over and crashed to the floor.

“No,” she said.  “No one could never take her place!”  And she turned and ran from the office, the building, as fast as her legs would carry her.

(vi)

A good friend knows when to pass over a glass of wine.  An even better friend knows when to pass the whole bottle.  Cassie sat guzzling a sweet Italian white that Exa had brought back from Europe, probably planning for it to be consumed with more elegance.

“Easy there,” said Chelsea, pushing over a large dish of chocolate, ice cream, and hot fudge sauce: the student center’s signature dessert, a decadent brownie sundae.  “Have some food to go with that.”

“Yeah, screw the calories,” said Exa.

Cassie grabbed a spoon and dug in, her eyes still swollen from crying.

“What happened?” asked another student, wandering over to their table.  “Booze _and_ chocolate?  Must be pretty bad.”

“Professor Cavanaugh was murdered,” said Exa.

“No shit!”  The boy took a fourth seat, turning it around and straddling it.  “Really?”

“There hasn’t been an official announcement yet,” added Chelsea.  “It happened like two or three days ago.”

“Oh, man!”  The boy looked at Cassie.  “You knew her?”

“She was my advisor.  She was supposed to be supervising my thesis.”  Cassie hated talking about Dr. Cavanaugh in the past tense.  Lucille had been her mentor and friend during her first two years, and all during Cassie’s year in Australia, the elderly professor had been in constant contact by email, talking about their plans for Cassie’s honors thesis.  Cassie had been looking forward not only to their work together, but to renewing their friendship.  Realizing that she’d never see the woman again made Cassie’s eyes water anew.

“So, who’s taking her place?” asked Exa.

“I dunno,” Cassie said, slugging down more wine, wishing the combination of alcohol and sugar would blot out the pain.  “Some guy.  An adjunct, I guess.”

“What are you gonna do about your thesis?” asked Chelsea.

“I dunno,” Cassie repeated.  There were so many other things for which she’d been relying on Dr. Cavanaugh’s help, including her applications to veterinary school.  Right now she was too numb to think about even the next hour, let alone the rest of the year.  “This sucks.”

The boy asked, “What about the funeral?”

Cassie shrugged.  “Her family will arrange that.  I don’t know them at all.”

“So what... what happened?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”  Cassie dug into the pile of ice cream and chocolate.  “The new guy just said she was murdered.”

“There hasn’t been any kind of announcement yet,” said Exa.  “They’ll have to, pretty soon.  Maybe they’re trying to decide the right spin to put on it.”

“Jesus,” said Chelsea.  “What a way to start the year!”

Cassie didn’t argue with that; instead, she guzzled more of Exa’s wine.

(vii)

When her hangover wore off the next day, Cassie took herself off on a long bike ride on mountain roads and trails, half-forgotten during her year away.  She tried to let the fresh air and warm sunlight sooth her monstrous sense of grief: Dr. Cavanaugh had loved nature and the outdoors, devoting her life to the study of birds and animals.  She’d always exhorted her students to work to the fullest extent of their abilities, and Cassie knew she would have expected her young charges to continue their studies after she was gone.

Back on campus, with a clear head and a new sense of resolution, Cassie marched into the office of Rachel Fiske, one of the other biology professors.

“No, Cassie, I’m sorry—I already have five thesis advisees of my own, and I’m taking on three of Lucille’s.  You’ll have to find someone else—ask Dr. Gupta if anyone else has the time.”

Professor Gupta, the head of the biology department, greeted Cassie with a harried expression and much the same news.  “No, I’m taking on two of Lucille’s students myself, and everyone else in the department is overbooked—classes, advisees, committee work.”

Cassie groaned.  While she’d been getting drunk and feeling sorry for herself, her more pragmatic classmates had been finding new supervisors for their independent studies.

“Why don’t you talk to Dr. Smith?” Professor Gupta suggested.

“He’s new.”  Cassie could hear the whine in her voice.  “I don’t even know him.”

“He’s perfectly qualified,” said Professor Gupta.  “Degrees from Cambridge and Oxford.  A lovely man, too.  I think he’ll be very happy to supervise your work.”

Cassie started to protest, but Professor Gupta shooed her away.  “I’m sorry, Cassie.  He’s the only instructor in the department with enough time.”

She dragged her feet from Professor Gupta’s office through the science complex, passing labs and classrooms, through the atrium where the previous year’s senior theses were exhibited in glass cases.  For three years, Cassie had fantasized about seeing her own work displayed there.  Now that dream, like so many others, seemed like it would never come to fruition.

Half-hoping Professor Smith would be out, she trudged through Hogan to room 104.  The door was open, the lights on, a schedule of classes and office hours taped to the frosted glass.  Cassie experienced another spasm of pain: those were Lucille’s classes: intro biology, an intermediate ecology course, and of course, the advanced seminar for thesis students.

She tapped on the door frame.  “Dr. Smith?”

He sat flipping through a science periodical, and now he glanced up, removing his glasses.

“Yes, hello?”

Wondering if he even remembered her, she said, “I’m Cassie Sterlin.  I was in here yesterday—”

“Cassiopeia!” he beamed.  Grabbing a piece of paper off his desk, he said, “You’re one of my seniors.  There’s a constellation called Cassiopeia—it’s upside down for half the year; isn’t that brilliant?”

“Uh, yeah.”  Lowering herself into a chair, Cassie said, “Dr. Cavanaugh was supposed to be supervising my thesis.  My independent study.  Uh, none of the other faculty have time... Dr. Gupta said, like, maybe you could...”

“Of course!”  Dr. Smith leaned back in his chair.  “What are you doing?  Some kind of experiment?”

Cassie experienced a simultaneous rush of guilt and relief; if he even remembered her rude outburst, he didn’t hold it against her.  “We were gonna look at squirrels that live on the campus green and compare them to the populations in the woods,” she explained.  “Look at differences in behavior, feeding patterns...”  As she spoke, Professor Smith began jotting down notes.

“We can do some DNA testing, too, see if there’s any breeding between the two populations,” he said, warming to the project.

They discussed trapping and banding the squirrels, and the best way to observe the animals.  They agreed to a regular schedule of meetings, and Cassie told him about the work Dr. Cavanaugh had already done in preparation for the project.  Before Cassie realized it, she was telling Professor Smith about her year in Australia, finding him blessedly easy to talk to.

“So, is this what you’ll be doing when you leave here?  Field biology?  Another Jane Goodall, out with the chimps of Gombe?  Lovely woman, Jane.  Don’t ever play badminton with her; she’ll crush you.  Not many people know that about her.”

Laughing, Cassie said, “No, I’m going to vet school.  Most of my work in Australia was rehabilitating injured animals—you know, like kangaroos that get hit on the highways.  I volunteer sometimes at a rescue shelter downtown.”

“Good for you!” he said, and Cassie found herself smiling, despite her sadness, amused by his contagious enthusiasm.

“Uh, you know, I have work-study as part of my financial aid, and last year, Dr. Cavanaugh said I could be a TA in her baby bio lab.”  At his blank look, she said, “A teaching assistant in the intro biology labs.  Help the kids out, grade their lab reports, stuff like that.”

“An assistant!  Oh, I love having an assistant!”  Cassie chewed the inside of her mouth to keep from laughing: did he always talk like that, or was he a nut case?  “That’s brilliant.”

“Okay!” she said.  “It beats the hell out of washing dishes.  Thank you.”

“It’s my pleasure.”

“Listen,” she said, “I’m really sorry about yesterday—”

He shook his head.  “Don’t worry about it.”  The kindness in his face made Cassie feel even more ashamed about the way she’d reacted the previous day.

With a quick glance around at the bare walls, she said, “I’ve never seen it look so empty.  When—when’d they take all her stuff away?”

“One of her sons is in town, and I gather the facilities staff helped him put everything into boxes.”

“Do you know anything about the funeral?”

“Charlie said that’ll be down in North Carolina.”  Now it was Cassie’s turn to stare blankly.  “That’s where she was from.”

“I know that—who’s Charlie?”

“Your academic VP.”

“Dr. Holland?”  A moment later, Cassie remembered his first name was Charles.  “I’m not on a first-name basis with the higher-ups.”

“Will you attend the funeral?” he asked.

“Not if it’s in North Carolina,” she said.  “That’s too far away.  Do you know if there’ll be any kind of memorial service here on campus?”

“I believe it’s being organized.”

“Thanks.”  Cassie stood up, afraid that her emotional control might start slipping again.  “Thank you for everything, Dr. Smith.”

“Just Doctor,” he said, smiling.  “Please.”

“Okay, Doctor.  I gotta run—see ya!”

Outside the building, a rustling noise attracted Cassie’s notice, and a moment later, a small gray head poked up from a nearby trash receptacle.  The squirrel hopped out, a half-eaten bagel secured in its jaws.  Laughing, Cassie told it, “I’ll be seeing you, too.”

(viii)

Water tumbled and splashed against Cassie’s ears as she approached the wall.  Judging distance, she pulled herself into a tuck and flipped over, pushing herself off the wall, grimacing at the lack of power in her dolphin kicks.  Swimming was the one activity she’d had to give up during her year away, and it wasn’t easy to get back into.  After only ten laps, her legs were screaming for mercy, and she yearned to return to her dormitory bed.  Her body still hadn’t adjusted to the time change, and 7:30 AM felt like the middle of the night.

After another ten laps, Cassie gave up, hauling herself from the water.  Early morning wasn’t a popular swim time, and save a yawning lifeguard, she’d had the place to herself for most of the hour.  Even now, only one other swimmer had arrived, a muscular woman in a smart two-piece white suit.  Her cap was also white, her goggles black, mirrored eyepieces reflecting the light.  Cassie watched her smooth, economical strokes, her powerful kick, her rapid, assured flips at the wall.  She groaned, jealous, thinking how much time she’d need before she built up to that level again.

Outside the gym, running into Diana Wollcinac didn’t help matters.

“Cassie!” the triathlon coach bellowed.  “You’re back!”

“Just got out of the pool,” laughed Cassie.  “Whoo boy, I’m wiped.”

“We’ll get you moving again!”  Diana thumped Cassie’s shoulder.  “You up for a ride on Sunday?  Ten miles, lots of hill work.”

“What time?”

“We’re taking off around nine.”

“Yeah, I can do that.”

“I’ll have the schedule for the master’s classes up by next week.”

“Good,” said Cassie, though right now she felt that she never wanted to see another pool again for as long as she lived.

“You still running?”

“Yeah, I’m building up to about twenty miles a week.”

“Great!  I’m holding a clinic on weight-training next month, too.  Watch for it.”

“Sure.  How many kids did you have last year?”

“Maybe a dozen, plus some faculty and staff.  Only about five of them were serious.  It’s a tough sell.  People like the glamour, but not the work.”

Cassie laughed.  “I’ll see what I can do to recruit some noobs.”

“Hey, I heard about Lucille—wasn’t she your advisor?”

“Yeah, she was.”

“I’m sorry.  What a shitty thing to happen!”

“Yeah.”  The chapel bell had begun to chime, and Cassie said, “I need to run… later, okay?”  She bolted for the dining commons.

(ix)

Part of working as a TA included attending class lectures, so that she’d know what material the instructor was covering.  Cassie didn’t mind the 9:00 AM lectures, which forced her out of bed, if nothing else.  She counted heads in the small lecture hall: about forty, all told, so there’d be twenty in each lab section, mostly freshmen and sophomores.

On the stroke of nine, Dr. Smith arrived, dressed in a brown pinstriped suit that had seen a better day.  He wore white basketball sneakers on his feet.  From a battered leather briefcase, he withdrew a sheaf of papers and began handing them around.

“Right, settle down,” he said, and the chatter began to subside; this was many kids’ first class of the semester, and for some the first of their college careers.  “I’m Dr. Smith—just ‘Doctor,’ if you please.  I was hired to cover Dr. Cavanaugh’s courses.  If you downloaded her syllabus from the college web site, please discard it.  You may also have noticed there’s no textbook for the course.  Science textbooks are rubbish—you don’t learn science by reading about it; you learn by getting your hands dirty in the field.  By the time books are published, half the material in them is obsolete.  You’ll read journal articles, as assigned.”

The syllabus was making its rounds, and kids had pens and notebooks ready; Dr. Smith spoke very quickly, and Cassie could tell right away that keeping up with him would pose a challenge for some of the underprepared kids.

“You’ll notice our first topic will be evolution.  Dr. Cavanaugh had this last on her syllabus, which is also rubbish—you can’t learn anything about biology without understanding its most basic underlying mechanism.”  Dr. Smith turned to the whiteboard and scrawled EVOLUTION in big capital letters with a black marker.

“Right,” he began.  “Evolution by natural selection is, in its simplest—”  He turned and pointed a finger.  “Fifth row, third from the left, blue hoodie.  Yes, you.  Please put away the cell phone.”

All heads turned, and the red-faced offender tucked her cellular into a nearby book bag.

“Right.  Now, the easiest way to—yes, what is it?”

A boy near the front had raised his hand.  “What about intelligent design?”

“What about—I’m sorry?”

“Intelligent design,” the boy persisted, his tone belligerent.  “The theory that something as complex as life on Earth had to have been the work of an intelligent entity.”

From the back, a loud voice complained, “He means creationism,” and a few other kids snickered.

“Ah!”  Dr. Smith nodded.  “Creationism is a myth.”

The boy started to protest, but Dr. Smith cut him off.  “Creationism is a story your ancestors devised to explain something they couldn’t understand—something they didn’t have the tools to understand.  Myths aren’t evil or wrong, but they are essentially stories, and they don’t make terribly compelling science.”

“But we should at least consider the possibility,” the boy argued.

“If you want to debate faith versus reason, there’s a lovely philosophy department, right here on campus.  This is a science classroom.”

“But shouldn’t we at least learn about competing theories?”

“Creationism isn’t theory, and it’s not science,” Dr. Smith maintained.  He glanced around the room.  “Anyone care to guess why?”

A girl’s hand shot up.  “Creationism can’t be proved.”

“Nice job.”  Dr. Smith fished into his briefcase, pulling out an apple and a banana.  He set the fruit on the table.  Addressing the boy who’d started the argument, he said, “Please tell me what we have here.”

“An apple and a banana,” the boy said.

“Right.”  Dr. Smith returned the banana to his book bag.  “Now, what do we have?”

“An apple,” the boy said.

“No, I think you’re wrong.  I think we still have an apple and a banana.”

“There’s no banana,” the boy said.  From his tone of voice, Cassie gathered he was beginning to feel like an idiot.

“No, there’s a banana here.  You just can’t see it.  Now, I _know_ there’s a banana, because the Golden Book of the Holy Banana tells me so.”

More laughter swept through the room, and Cassie almost felt sorry for Mr. Intelligent Design.

“Can anyone tell me what’s the problem with my banana?”

Another boy said, “Believing the banana’s still there is something you have to take on faith.”

“Exactly!  Now, this apple—it’s sitting right here, right?  How do you know that?”

“I can see it,” the second boy said.

“Right!  And can everyone else see this apple?”

Heads nodded all over the room.

“If you touch it, if you taste it, you know it’s an apple.  Now, we might disagree on what it means to have an apple sitting here, but we can all agree that it’s an apple, and it’s here, is that right?”

More nods.

“So, what do we have?”  Dr. Smith asked.  “Consensus, that’s what we have.  Agreement, based on our mutual observation.  I can repeat this exercise with a hundred apples, and we’d still say the same thing: it’s an apple.  The fact that there’s an apple sitting right here isn’t anything any one of us has to take on faith—we can observe it with our senses.”  He turned to the boy.  “Now, if you’re satisfied, can we get on with evolution?”

The boy squirmed but said nothing, slouching down in his seat.  Cassie regarded Dr. Smith with new appreciation.  She was beginning to think she really liked this guy.

(x)

“Golden Book of the Holy Banana!”  Deborah Katz, the college’s Jewish chaplain, shouted with laughter when Cassie told her the story.  “Wonderful.  I’ll have to remember that one.”

“He’s a great instructor,” Cassie said, aware she was gushing.  Toning down her voice, she said, “I’ve never heard anyone explain evolution the way he did—I actually took notes, even though we’ve covered evolution in every biology class and since high school.”

“So, you’re working in the labs?” asked Debbie.  “You can’t spare us an hour or two a week?”

“No—sorry.  It’s almost like I’m taking a fifth class.  I have lectures all morning every day, and labs all afternoon, Monday through Thursday, plus watching my squirrels, plus triathlon training.”

“That’s an awful lot on one plate,” Debbie smiled.

“It’s better that way—if I don’t keep busy, I start spacing out, and I don’t get anything done.”

“What about this Saturday morning?” Debbie asked, eyes pleading.  “We don’t have any student help lined up yet, and I need someone to cover the center while I’m running the Sabbath services.”

“Ehh,” Cassie laughed.  She’d been looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday, after such a tumultuous reentry.

“Oh, come on.  For old times sake.  It’s nine until maybe eleven.  You can spare two hours, can’t you?”

“Okay,” Cassie relented.  “Twist my arm.”  During her first two years, she’d had work-study hours at the college Interfaith Center, and she’d been a student member of the Interfaith Council as well—her parents’ mixed marriage gave her a good perspective.

“Great,” said Debbie.  “Thank you!”

(xi)

Saturday morning, Cassie schlepped a backpack full of homework over to the Interfaith Center, unlocked the office, and turned on the lights.  The center had been built into the side of a hill, with offices and a snack bar on the upper level.  The snack bar functioned as a kind of coffee house, where guest speakers, musicians, and comedians often made appearances on weekends; Cassie had met Chelsea at an event their freshman year.

A multi-use chapel occupied the lower level, opening onto a beautifully landscaped meditation garden.  Students could come and go through the center all day, unlike the main college chapel, which was only open at certain times.  Cassie made sure everything was unlocked before returning to the office.

After only three days of classes, Cassie didn’t have much homework, but she liked to keep on top of everything, to avoid being swamped at the end of the semester.  She transcribed some lecture notes into her laptop, then spent the next hour reading.  She’d opted to take an advanced biochemistry course, to bolster her veterinary school applications, but looking over the dense material, Cassie thought, _I might live to regret this_.

When the chapel bell struck eleven, Cassie packed up her homework; Debbie would be coming back soon.  Remembering the garden bird baths, she filled an empty gallon jug of water and went downstairs.

Outside in the garden, she had a sudden sense of something gone wrong.  Cassie couldn’t put a finger on it, but she experienced a weird, creepy rush, as if she’d come across a bad traffic accident.  The garden was too quiet, she realized, sounds from the outside oddly muffled.  She set down the water jug on a nearby bench and made a cautious circuit of the paths.

At first she didn’t recognize the pile of pulverized stone lying scattered across an herb bed, and it took a few moments for her to remember that on this spot had stood a statue of St. Francis of Assisi.  Cassie stared at the stone fragments, numb; St. Francis, the patron of animals and birds, had always been her favorite. 

She didn’t touch anything.  At one end of the garden, some kids from the Newman Association had made a little grotto to the Virgin Mary, and here, the saint had likewise been cast down, the little alabaster statue smashed to bits.  Her sense of outrage growing, Cassie continued her circuit of the garden, somehow knowing already what she would find: a bronze sculpture of Garuda, the Hindu god of birds, scratched and dented, as if someone had struck it repeatedly against a stone.  That figure had been donated by Professor Gupta; it had come to America with his late parents, and he’d intended for this corner of the garden to be a memorial to their memory.

Around another corner lay the smashed remains of a stone Buddha.  The disembodied hand holding its lotus blossom had tumbled forward, lying near Cassie’s feet, like some grotesque amputation.

Trembling, Cassie rounded the last curve in the path.  In a freshman year pottery course, Chelsea had created a likeness of the three-fold goddess: maid, mother, and crone, wonderfully stylized, like so much of Chelsea’s work.  Now it lay broken into pieces, the terra-cotta shards an incongruous cheery pink against the gray stone of the path.

**To be continued…**


	3. Angels of the Silences--Chapter Two

Two

#  _Anyone But You_

Before he called the police, Charles invited the Doctor to have a look at the meditation garden.  While he watched, his father’s friend made a circuit of the crushed gravel paths, examining each desecrated sculpture.  He first looked at them with his reading glasses, then with his 3-D glasses, making small noises as he passed the sonic screwdriver across the pieces of shattered artwork.

“Anything?” asked Charles.

“Nothing.”  The Doctor returned both sets of eyewear to an inner pocket.

“None of that… that energy you were talking about?”

“No.  No traces of anything non-terrestrial.”

“Who could’ve done it?  The doors are locked, there’s an alarm system, and the garden is surrounded by a twelve-foot high brick wall.”

“How many people have keys?”

Charles winced.  “I really couldn’t say.”

“It’s possible this is connected to your friend’s death, but it might not be—was Lucille religious?  Would any of the statues have meant anything to her?”

“Lucille was a Quaker,” said Charles.  “As far as I know, the only reason she ever came in here was to observe birds.”  He pointed to a clear cylinder hanging from a nearby tree.  “That’s a hummingbird feeder.”

“Have your police look around, take fingerprints, whatever it is they do,” the Doctor said.  “This might just be an especially ugly act of vandalism.”

They returned to the office, where the student who’d been on duty sat with Debra Katz, the Jewish chaplain.

“You all right, Cassie?” asked the Doctor.

“I’ve been better,” the girl answered.  “Can I go now?”

“We’ll need you to make a statement to the police,” Charles told her.

“I’m hungry,” she groaned.  “It’s lunchtime.”

The Doctor fished into a pocket and produced a bright yellow banana.  “Will this help?”

She smiled up at him, brown eyes wide and adoring.  Charles smiled; the Doctor was becoming a popular figure on the predominantly female campus.

“Thanks,” Cassie said.

With great reluctance, Charles reached for the phone.  He already felt so tired of dealing with the police.

(ii)

Three days after the incident in the garden, on Tuesday morning, Cassie’s laptop crashed.  She’d come back from a morning run and wanted to check her e-mail before class; she plugged in the computer and pressed the power button, but the screen flickered and went completely black.

“No!”  Cassie tried unplugging the machine and plugging it back in, tried rebooting, but nothing, nada, zip: the blasted thing was as dead as a brick.

She raced into the hall and banged on Chelsea’s door.  “What’s the number for IT?” she gabbled.  “My lappy just bit the dust!”

Chelsea searched on-line and provided the number, and Cassie jabbed the digits into her cellular with a shaking hand.  A woman’s low voice answered, and Cassie wailed, “My laptop crashed!  It has all my research data from last year—”

“Bring it in,” the woman laughed.

The IT center had changed in two years, the offices reconfigured.  Cassie didn’t recognize half the staff, including the muscular, sun-bronzed woman who greeted her at the help desk.  Cassie handed over the machine and stood whimpering while the woman plugged something into one of the laptop’s USB drives.  Some kind of diagnostic device?  Cassie had never seen anything like it before.  A line of letters and digits scrolled across a small screen.

“Hmm.”  The woman appeared to be about thirty, taut and strong-looking.  She had a wide, comical mouth and a wild shock of Hermione Granger hair.  She seemed familiar, though Cassie, in her agitation, couldn’t think why.

“Give me a minute.”

“Even if you can just save the data—”

“Did you back it up?”

 “Some of it,” allowed Cassie.

“ _Always_ save your important files.”  The woman fingered a pair of flash drives hanging around her neck on a lace.  “If you don’t have one of these, get one.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Cassie sighed.  “The cliché about horses and barn doors applies here.”

She didn’t feel comforted when the woman opened up the laptop and examined the preponderance of circuitry inside.  Cassie paced, sweating, cursing herself for having saved so much data to the hard drive.  When she dared look again, the woman was putting the laptop back together, fastening the tiny screws that held the casing closed.

“Cross your fingers.”  She plugged the power cord into a nearby socket.  A moment later, the Dell logo came up, followed a few moments later by Cassie’s wallpaper.

“What’s that?” the woman asked, staring at the picture.

“Mount Diogenes,” Cassie explained.  “It’s a famous geological formation in New South Wales.”  The tech gave her a blank look.  “In Australia,” Cassie elaborated.  “I went there on my Christmas holiday last year.”

“Oh.”  The tech watched while Cassie’s icons popped up onto the screen.

“There was a movie filmed there,” Cassie said.  “ _Picnic at Hanging Rock_.”  She blushed to think that the film, which she’d first seen on cable TV as a child, had sparked her initial interest in Australia.

“I never saw that one,” the woman murmured.

“It’s kind of old,” said Cassie.

“Here, try opening some files.”

Cassie took the laptop and opened a couple of spreadsheets and documents, gasping when she saw that nothing seemed to be lost.  “Ohmigod, you’re a lifesaver!”

“Good as new, for now,” the woman pronounced.  “You might want to think about getting another machine, though—they don’t last forever.  And back up your data, for God’s sake.”

“Will do,” Cassie laughed, so relieved she was shaking.  “Thank you so much!  I’m sorry—what’s your name?”

The woman flipped up an ID card clipped to her belt.  “Shira Nahar,” she said.  “I’m the new assistant director.”

Cassie held out a hand.  “Cassie Sterlin.  I’m a senior.”  She realized then where she’d seen the woman.  “Don’t you swim in the mornings?  White two-piece Speedo, white cap, black goggles?”

The woman’s blue-gray eyes narrowed for a moment as she focused, then her smile widened.  “I knew I’d seen you somewhere.”

“I’m very jealous of your dolphin kicks,” Cassie told her.

Laughing, Shira said, “You’re observant.”

“I’m a biology major… I have to be.”  Curious about the newcomer, Cassie asked, “Are you Israeli?”  She had a good ear for accents, but Shira Nahar sounded like she could have come from just about anywhere.  Almost certainly, though, she was not American.

Shira turned away for a moment as she unplugged Cassie’s laptop.  “My family was, or so I’m told.”  Something in her voice indicated she had no wish to pursue the topic, and Cassie let it drop: not everyone who immigrated did so for happy reasons.

Cassie admired the older woman’s shoulders and arms, set off to good advantage by a plain white tank top.  Her trousers were ordinary drab olive, her shoes black and functional.  There was a leather gauntlet on her left wrist: Cassie couldn’t tell if this were a fashion statement or an ergonomic support.  Maybe both.  With her taut body and distinctive face, Shira Nahar didn’t need to waste a lot of time on clothes or hair or makeup.  Cassie envied the woman’s ability to make an impression with so little effort.

On impulse, Cassie asked, “You ever do a tri?”

“I’ll try anything at least once, but you’re not really my type.”

Cassie burst into loud, raucous laughter.  “No, no!” she said.  “I meant a triathlon.”  She pointed to her new t-shirt, which bore logos for swimming, bicycling, and running.  Beneath the pictures were the words, “Why not try a tri?” and beneath that, “Ethan Allen TRIpods.”

Shira squinted at the shirt.  “What’s the one in the middle mean?”

“It’s a bike,” said Cassie.  “There’s three parts to the competition: you swim, then you do a bike race, then you finish with a run.”

“Is a bike one of those funny things with two wheels I sometimes see people riding?”

Cassie stared: could the woman be serious?  “You’ve never seen a bicycle before?”

“I’m not a local.”

Flabbergasted that anyone on Earth could live thirty years without ever having seen a bike, Cassie said, “Yeah, bicycle.  Two wheels.  Bike for short.”

“I’ve never been on one.  Not sure I’d want to, either.  They look a little flimsy.”

“Oh.”  Cassie felt disappointed, but she said, “There’s a master’s swimming class that meets Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights.  You can drop by for any class you want.  Diana runs them.  It’s a great workout.”

“I’ll keep it in mind, thanks.”  A phone on the desk began to bleat, and Shira picked up the receiver.  “Help desk,” she said, winking at Cassie.

Cassie let her get to work, collecting the laptop and leaving.  Her biochemistry lecture would begin in fifteen minutes.

(iii)

“Is it me, or do the frosh look like they just got out of playgroup yesterday?”

Cassie laughed at Exa’s question.  Leaning across the salad bar to snag some broccoli, she said, “It’s hard to believe that was us three years ago.  You should see them in the baby bio lab—they barely know how to write, let alone write a lab report.”

“Do you get paid for overtime?” Exa joked.  “Maybe you can tutor them.”

“I get paid for whatever I work, but I’d blast through my work-study money in one semester.  They can check out the Writing Center—I’m not getting paid to show them where to put apostrophes.”

They joined Chelsea, who’d commandeered a corner table in the busy dining commons.  Exa had already staked out their turf with books and notebooks, and Chelsea sat thumbing through a thick hardcover in a glossy black jacket.

“What’s that?” asked Cassie.

Chelsea turned the book so that Cassie could see the cover.  The book’s title, in stark white letters, read, “SAXON,” and beneath that, in smaller type, “The Seduction of a Nation.”

“Ooh, cool,” Cassie said.  “That looks more interesting than anything I’ll be reading this year.”

“It’s for my European politics seminar,” Exa said.  “We’re using the whole Saxon thing as a case study.”

“So, who was he?” asked Cassie.  She’d just arrived in Australia when the newly-elected British prime minister had assassinated the American president, sparking a firestorm of international hostility.  Her parents had kept her updated on the news, but at the time, like so many other things, the matter had seemed to Cassie very far away and unimportant.  “Did anyone ever find out?”

“Nobody knows,” said Exa, taking the book from Cassie.  “They found a body they think was his, but they’re not sure, ‘cuz it was burned to a crisp.  His wife was a fruit loop—they couldn’t get anything out of her.  What we’re looking at in class is the way he took over the media, manipulated public opinion, stuff like that.  He practically turned Britain into a fascist police state before his wife shot him to death.”

“Guess she didn’t like his politics,” Cassie laughed.

The three girls dug into their lunches.  “How’re the burgers?” Exa asked Chelsea.

“Same as ever,” Chelsea laughed.  She wrinkled her nose at Cassie’s plate of vegetables.  “How can you live on that bird food?”

“I dunno, how can you live on cow fat?”

“I have to maintain my Reubenesque curves,” said Chelsea in a lofty voice.

“If I ate that much grease, I’d break out like I had smallpox.”

Exa’s sandwich paused midway to her mouth.  “Ohmigod, who’s that guy?”

Cassie turned.  “That’s Dr. Smith,” she said.

Both her friends turned jealous eyes on her.

“You’re kidding!” said Exa.  “You’re working with _him_ the whole year, you lucky bitch?”

“Oh, I’ve seen him around campus,” Chelsea said, her eyes glazed.  “The one who’s so old and lonely and sad.”

Now it was Cassie’s turn to stare.  “Old?” she sputtered.  “And where the hell did you pull lonely and sad out of?  It’s not like you know him or something.”

Chelsea blinked.  “What?”

Exa sighed, passing a hand in front of Chelsea’s eyes.  “Earth to Chelsea, do you read me?”

“Shut the hell up,” Chelsea laughed.

Exa’s eyes roved up and down Dr. Smith as he stood waiting in the lunch line, hands in his trouser pockets.  A long tan overcoat was looped through one arm.  “Nice ass,” she pronounced.

“Subtle,” Cassie snarked.

“What, like you haven’t looked?”

“We’re usually sitting down.”

“Is he really that tall?”

“Pretty much everyone’s tall to me,” said Cassie.  “Except you.”  She took a better look at Dr. Smith, and she had to admit, the pinstriped trousers flattered his backside quite nicely.  “You think he’s hot?”

“Ohmigod, Cass!” said Exa.  “He’s gorgeous!  How old is he?”

“I dunno, thirty maybe?”

“That’s not too old,” Exa winked.

Cassie crunched on a carrot stick.  “He’s my advisor, ferchrissakes.  I’m sure there must be rules about that.”

“We’re graduating, so who’d care?  And he’s only here for what, a year?” said Chelsea.  “It’s not like anybody’d know.”

“Get real,” Cassie laughed.  “A campus this size?  If I screwed him, it’d be all over Facebook the next morning.”

They continued eating and bickering until Dr. Smith emerged from the kitchen with a tray in his hand.  From halfway across the dining room, he caught Cassie’s eye, and began to thread his way between tables.

“Ohmigod, he’s coming over here!” Chelsea squeaked.

“Quick, clear some space,” said Cassie.  The other two girls hastened to move their books and bags from the one empty chair.  “And try to act normal, okay?”

A moment later, Dr. Smith reached the table, smiling down with the expression of a man who knows he’s welcome just about anywhere.

“Hello, is that a spare seat?”

“Yeah!” the three girls chorused.

He draped his long coat over the back of the chair and sat.  Maybe because he was so thin, Cassie had expected him to be eating a salad or the vegetarian entrée; instead, he had a thick BLT and a large pile of French fries.

Cassie said, “Doctor, these are my friends, Exa von Alt and Chelsea Zariello.  Exa, Chel, this is Dr. Smith, my new advisor.”

“Hello!” he said, reaching over to shake hands.  “So nice to meet you.”

“What part of England are you from?” asked Exa.

“London,” Dr. Smith said around a mouthful of sandwich.

Cassie almost dropped her fork.  For a moment, she experienced an alarming sense of cognitive dissonance, as if she’d been flung around in an ellipsis and then set back on her feet.  Until that instant, she hadn’t realized—consciously—that Dr. Smith had any kind of accent.  Did he?  Or didn’t he?  His voice had sounded American to her ears, although British slang peppered his conversation.  Maybe the year in Australia had altered her perceptions of people’s voices?  She was willing to swear Dr. Smith had sounded American to her, but now he suddenly seemed a Brit through and through: his voice, his manner, his expressions, even the way he handled his food.  With degrees from Cambridge and Oxford, how could he be anything but English?  Yet Cassie was absolutely certain he’d sounded American to her only moments earlier.

“That is the most amazing coat I’ve ever seen,” said Exa.

“Thank you!” he beamed.

“Where’d you find it, if you don’t mind my asking?  Or was it a custom job?”

He smiled.  “Janis Joplin gave it to me.”

Chelsea almost spit out her soda.  “Janis Joplin died in 1970.”

Cassie said, “He’s pulling your leg.”  She watched Dr. Smith eat French fries.  Funny, she’d never really taken a good look at him until now: in her mind, he was still Lucille’s replacement, and it hadn’t mattered to her how old or young he was, how he dressed, whether he was nice to look at.  Based on the creases around his eyes and the wavy lines on his forehead, she put his age at somewhere around thirty-five.  He might be as young as thirty or as old as forty, but she was guessing mid-to-late thirties.  His hair, brown and untidy, had begun to thin noticeably at the hairline.  He had a pleasant face, though there was something guarded about his expression, especially around the eyes.

“So, what are you two here for?” he asked Chelsea and Exa.

“European Studies,” Exa provided.

“Art,” said Chelsea.  Under the table, she’d slid a small sketch pad into her lap, and one of her pencils was working.

“Oh, brilliant; I love art.  Who do you most admire?”

“Lots of favorites,” Chelsea laughed.  She kept eating with her left hand, while her right moved under the table: she could produce amazing freehand sketches without even looking. “Gauguin, Matisse, Caravaggio, Renoir… I’m partial to Impressionists, but there’s pretty much no one I don’t like.”

Exa said, “Hey, what about that crazy theory that Jack the Ripper was one of Whistler’s students?”

“Walter Sickert?” said Chelsea.  “No, most of the surviving evidence is too old to really prove anything…” and the debate continued, loud and lively, Cassie providing details about the difference between nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA.  From time to time, Dr. Smith would smile, enigmatic, down at his plate.  He ate very neatly, even when using his hands, and Cassie admired the length of his fingers.

When he stood up to leave, Chelsea handed him the sketch.

“Aren’t you clever!” he said, causing Chelsea to blush the deep red of cranberries.  He studied the sketch.  “You really think I look like that?”

“I did it under the table, without looking,” she said.  “It came out the way it came out.”

Cassie and Exa craned their necks for a look.  In a few quick lines, Chelsea had caught Dr. Smith: the long, angular line of his face, the shape of his nose, the thick eyebrows, the untamed shock of hair.  She’d drawn his mouth as a single hard slashing line.  But the eyes—she’d done each eye as a dark scribble, and they gave his whole face a dangerous expression.  A sense of intelligence and energy, maybe even something ruthless, vibrated out from the image.

He looked at the sketch a few moments longer, lost in thought.  Then he smiled at Chelsea, tucking the picture into a pocket.  “Thank you,” he said, before leaving with his coat over one arm.  The room felt small and colorless after he’d gone.

(iv)

The sound of her cell phone chirping startled Cassie, and she set down her neurophysiology reading.  Outside the window, night had fallen.

“Hello?”

“Well, hello to you, too,” her father’s dry voice said.

“Oh, hi, Dad.”

“How’s school going?”

“Okay.”

“We were just wondering—you’ve been there a week with no phone calls or e-mails.  I think we heard more from you when you were in the outback.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

“And then we read in the _Times_ that Lucille Cavanaugh was murdered, and no suspect has been apprehended.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine.  I was kind of shaken up when I found out.”

“You could’ve called us.”

“Sorry,” Cassie winced.

“So, who’s supervising your thesis?”

“A new guy,” said Cassie.  “He’s English.  John Smith.  He’s friends with Dr. Holland.”

“Is he competent?”

“He’s brilliant.  Really, really smart.  I’m TAing his bio labs.  A dozen kids dropped the class in the first week ‘cuz they were so intimidated.”

“Good, he’ll keep you on your toes, then.  How’s the new dorm?”

“Gorgeous,” Cassie told him.  “I’m in a suite with Chelsea and Exa.  Four rooms and a common bathroom.  We love it.”

“Who’s in the forth room?”

“It’s empty for now.  They said we might get someone in January.”

“Good.  Well, here’s your mother.”

“Okay, bye.”

A moment later, Cassie’s mother came on the line.

“Hello, there.”

“Hi, Mom.”

“Are you all right?  We’ve been worried about you.”

“I’m okay now.  I wasn’t doing so well last week—got drunk and felt sorry for myself.”

“Yes, that’s very productive.  So you have a new advisor?”

“Yeah, an English guy named John Smith.  He went to Cambridge and Oxford.  He’s amazing—I’m learning a lot from him.”

“Will he be able to help you with your vet school applications?” her mother asked.

“I’ll get Rachel Fiske to help me.  She’s on the pre-med and pre-vet committee, and Dr. Smith doesn’t know much about American veterinary colleges.”

“So, where are you looking?”

“Tufts, Cornell, UPenn…”

“You’d like to stay in the northeast?”

“In a perfect world,” said Cassie.  “I’m also thinking maybe UC-Davis.”

“When are the application deadlines?”

“October, November, most of them.”

“Do you need to interview?”

“Only if I’m accepted,” Cassie laughed.

“I’m sure you will.”  The Sterlins’ unshakeable faith in their daughter’s abilities always made Cassie smile.

“Now, what about standardized tests?”

“Most of them just want the GRE general exam,” Cassie said.  “I’m taking it next month, and I’m taking the subject exam in biology, for the hell of it, in November.”

“Have you been practicing?”

Rolling her eyes, Cassie said, “Mom, I spent this whole past summer practicing.”  Cassie had never met a standardized exam she’d failed to ace.

“If there’s anything you need, just let us know.”

“Money,” Cassie grinned.  “There’s a lot of fees.”

“About how much?”

“Between the tests and the application fees, maybe $400?”

“We’ll send you a check,” her mother promised.

“Thanks,” Cassie said.  “I’ll save the receipts for you.”

“Are you coming home for Thanksgiving?”

“Weather permitting.”

“Gigi misses you.”

Laughing, Cassie said, “Did she get my postcards?  I bought the biggest ones I could find.”

“Dad read them for her.  She was very excited.  Wanted to know if you’d met any handsome Australian men.”

“Plenty, but none of them interested in a dweeby little Yankee Sheila.”

“She wants to know why you’re not married yet.”

Cassie joked, “Tell her to find me a husband… preferably someone who was born in this century.”

“What do you expect?  She’s almost a hundred and five.  In her frame of reference, any girl who wasn’t married by twenty was an old maid.”

“Yeah, well, tell her to get over it.”

“You can do that yourself at Thanksgiving, if she’s still alive.”

“I wish it wasn’t so hard to talk to her by phone,” said Cassie.  Gigi was her nickname for her father’s irascible grandmother: half-blind, hard-of-hearing, wheelchair-bound, and an unholy terror.  Since the old woman refused to be called any variation on great-grandmother, Cassie called her G.G., or Gigi for short.  “I miss her.”

“Send us an email and your father will read it to her.”

“Okay,” said Cassie.  “Is she doing okay in the new retirement center?”

“She’s doing really well,” Mrs. Sterlin reported.  “She likes it much better than the other place.  She already has a boyfriend.”

“She has a better love life than me,” Cassie groused.

“There’s two of them, I think, that’re fighting over her.”

“I believe it—she’ll be a siren ‘till the day she dies.  Listen, Mom—I need to run.  There’s about twenty more pages of biochem reading before I can go to bed tonight.”

“All right, honey.  Just so long as we know you’re okay.”

“I’d let you know if I wasn’t.”

Mrs. Sterlin made a noise in her throat indicating that she didn’t believe it.

(v)

The September days unfolded in a mellow parade over the next two weeks, the weather crisp, the first color touching the maple trees.  Time flew for Cassie: classes, labs, observing squirrels, training with Diana, pulling together her vet school applications.  In her spare hours—there weren’t many—she volunteered at the town’s animal shelter.  She set aside Saturday nights for her friends, knowing that the following May would likely see them scattered once more across the country, if not the world.

One especially beautiful afternoon, after her neurophysiology lab had ended, she came across Dr. Smith’s ecology class on its way back from the campus pond.  Long before she saw the group, she heard his voice: loud, clear, unmistakable.  The students came into view, and Cassie waved, laughing at the way Dr. Smith looked with the kids flocking around him, like the Pied Piper, or a mother goose with a clutch of goslings.

“Right now, _allons-y_ ,” Dr. Smith called.  “Boat–back to the boathouse.  The rest of you—back to the lab.”  The students clutched murky jars of pond water, which they’d be examining for microscopic organisms.  Two others hefted an aluminum rowboat, while a third carried oars.

Cassie fell into step beside Dr. Smith, thumbing the power button on her iPod and tugging out the earbuds.

“Hullo, what are you up to?” he smiled, hands in pockets.

“My neurophys lab ended an hour early.  I thought I’d squeeze in a run before supper.”

“You like to run?” he asked, glancing at her feet.

“Run, swim, bike—I’m in the campus triathlon club.”

“Can you run fast?” he grinned.

“Faster than you,” she taunted.

“We’ll see about that.”

Out here in the open air, Dr. Smith seemed in his element, happy and animated.  Cassie wondered, not for the first time, about his previous work experience.  His knowledge of just about everything seemed boundless, and yet he was working on a one-year adjunct contract at a small, rural college.  In the full light of day, she took a closer look at his face; he seemed young enough to have recently finished a doctoral program, though Cassie had begun to suspect he wasn’t quite as young as he appeared.

“Did Dr. Holland tell you anything about the meditation garden?” Cassie asked.  “Does he know what happened?”

“There’s no suspects,” Dr. Smith provided.  “The police came and looked, took pictures and fingerprints, but security around the center is lax.  Any number of keys has been given out over the years.  Some student workers get copies of the key, then graduate or leave campus and never return them.  Since there was no sign of forced entry, the police are guessing it was an inside job, someone who already had a key.”

“That pisses me off,” Cassie scowled.  “Some kid getting in there and wrecking all that artwork.  Why?  Some big statement against religion?  Or someone who doesn’t like an ecumenical religious center?”

“You’d know that better than I would,” Dr. Smith answered.  “What are the students like here?”

“Pretty diverse,” said Cassie.  “It’s kind of a campus joke that the only college more liberal than Ethan Allen is UC-Berkeley.  There’s a lot of kids from different faiths, there’s lots of kids that are pagans or atheists or ‘fuzzy,’ as I like to call them—you know, they believe in something, but they’re just not sure what it is.”

Dr. Smith tipped back his head and laughed.

“So it’s not a place that’s really friendly to extremists of any stripe,” Cassie said.  “If you were a really strict Muslim or Catholic, for example, or a really evangelical Protestant, you’d never come here.  Even our handful of born-agains are all peace signs and flowers and Jesus loves you.  Exa jokes that the official campus motto oughta be ‘I’m okay; you’re okay.’  Nobody’s ever complained about the Interfaith Center before.  I can’t believe someone would hate the idea so badly they’d come in and smash up a bunch of artwork like that.”

“Unless it was an attack against the students who created the work.”

“The statue of Garuda came over from India with Dr. Gupta’s parents.  And most of the other stuff has been there a few years, so the students who made them have all graduated.  The most recent thing was Chelsea’s triple goddess.”

“I hope she wasn’t too upset?”

“She’s furious.  She said she’ll make another one, if she has time, but it won’t be the same.  Inspiration doesn’t strike twice, not the same way.”

“No.”  Dr. Smith looked thoughtful.

“It’s weird, though,” said Cassie.  “If it was just vandalism, you’d have expected smashed widows and graffiti and ruined flowers.  But nothing else was touched.  Just the statues.  That makes it look like some kind of slam against religion.”

“Yes, and with so many traditions represented, it’s not like it was an attack against any faith in particular.”

“Yeah.”  The Klugman Center was coming up.  Cassie knew Dr. Smith had to get back to work, and she wanted to take advantage of her unexpected free hour, but she loved being around him, loved talking to him.

“Do American students ever take a gap year?”  He made the question seem very casual, but Cassie sensed some purpose behind it.

“Not the way kids in other countries do,” said Cassie.  “Sometimes, but it’s not that common.  Most kids don’t have the money to wander around on their own, and once they’ve finished college, the loans start coming due.”

“What about you?  Do you like to travel?”

“Oh, I love to travel.  That’s why I did my junior year in Aussie.”

“So, you’d never think of taking a year before you start vet school?”

“No, I’m gonna jump right into it,” Cassie said.  “I don’t wanna lose momentum.  Besides,” she laughed, “the ‘rentals are paying for everything, but they’re not gonna pay for me to go gallivanting for a year.”

“Hmm.”  Dr. Smith smiled down in a way that made Cassie’s legs feel wobbly.  They’d reached the laboratory door.  “Tomorrow, then?”

“Yeah, see ya!”

Cassie turned and jogged off before he could see the hot blush that had turned her face maroon.  She had a weird sense that he’d been about to ask if she wanted to go traveling with him, and the prospect left her dry-mouthed and giddy.  If he had in fact asked her, Cassie wasn’t sure how she would have responded.

(vi)

On the last Wednesday of the month, the college’s faculty and staff meeting took place.  The meeting ran from 4:00 until 5:30, followed by dinner in the college center.  Cassie had sweet-talked Dr. Holland into letting her have a minute on the agenda.  Professors, instructors, and staff members piled into the big lecture hall; Cassie waved at admissions counselors she knew, at the director of the study-abroad program, and at Debbie Katz, who’d come in with other members of the philosophy department.  A photocopied agenda was circulating.

Cassie spotted Dr. Smith, already seated, and grabbed an empty chair next to him.

“I hate meetings,” he complained.  “Charlie strong-armed me into this one.  What’re you doing here?”

Cassie pointed to her TRIpods t-shirt.  “Drumming up membership,” she said.

At the front of the room, Dr. Holland was signaling for quiet.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” he said, and the jabber died down to a happy buzz.  “Welcome back.  Welcome to the start of the new year.”

Everyone applauded.

“We have a busy agenda today, so please, if we can move right along.  Our first item is the introduction of new faculty and staff members.  When I call your name, will you please stand up and say something about yourselves?”

He went down the list, and all around the room, people hopped to their feet to say hello.  Most of the newcomers were staff: custodians, librarians, secretaries, admissions workers.  Cassie knew that this year, a search would be conducted to hire a full-time replacement for Dr. Cavanaugh.  The thought depressed her terribly, and she was glad she’d have left Ethan Allen by the time the new person came onboard.

Dr. Holland had reached “S.”  He called, “John Smith?”

Beside Cassie, Dr. Smith unfolded his long body.  “Hullo, I’m John Smith, in biology. When I’m not teaching, I practice origami and compose symphonies.”  Everyone laughed and applauded, and he sat again.  Cassie gave him a little jab with her elbow, and he grinned back at her.

Dr. Holland finished all the names on his photocopied list.  “Have I missed anyone?”

The director of financial aid stood up to introduce a new staff member.  When she sat, the director of information technology got to his feet.

“Hey y’all, I’m pleased to announce we have a new assistant director in IT.  She’s been here less than a month, and she’s already been an invaluable help.  Some of you have met her—

Shira Nahar.”

Shira hopped up, her honey-colored curls bobbing.  “Hi, everyone,” she called in her loud voice.  “If your computer crashes, you know who to call.”  Everyone laughed, and the woman sat.

Cassie turned to Dr. Smith.  “She saved my life a couple of weeks ago, when my laptop...” she trailed off.  Dr. Smith had gone deathly pale, and he slowly began to crumple forward in his seat.

**To be continued…**


	4. Angels of the Silences--Chapter Three

Chapter Three

_Insignificant_

“Dr. Smith?”  Cassie grabbed him by the shoulders.  “Are you all right?”  Holding him upright with one hand, she fished into her backpack with the other, wishing she had something scented, like perfume or body lotion to hold beneath his nose.  Her fingers closed around a plastic bottle, and Cassie drew out a half-empty Coke.

“Here.”  She thrust the bottle into his hands; he was shaking, but he managed to get the beverage down in a few noisy swallows.  The caffeine and sugar did the trick, and he stopped looking so ill.  Then he just sat slumped in his seat, glassy-eyed, motionless except for his trembling hands.

What could have startled him so?  Cassie stared around the room, but everyone’s attention was focused forward, on Dr. Holland, who was giving an update on the college’s enrollment numbers.  Cassie wondered about the timing: Dr. Smith had swooned right after Shira Nahar had introduced herself.  Down near the front, Cassie could just make out the top of the tech’s head.  Did Dr. Smith know her?  If so, passing out was a peculiar way to react to her presence.

The meeting droned on.  When Dr. Holland reached the announcements, he signaled Cassie, and she bounded down to the front of the lecture hall.

“Hi, I’m Cassie Sterlin, with the Ethan Allen TRIpods.  We’re a club that trains for and participates in triathlons.  So if you like to run, swim, and bike, and you wanna push yourself to the limit, come see Diana Wollcinac in the Sports Center for the training schedule.  We’re not competitive, and everyone trains to their own ability level, so anyone who’s interested is welcome.”

“Thank you, Cassie,” Dr. Holland smiled.  Cassie slipped back to her seat, half-listening to the next announcement.  The meeting ended half an hour later, and after a quick goodbye, Dr. Smith made his escape, not giving Cassie a chance to ask any questions.

(ii)

When she finished solving a crisis for a professor in the science complex, Shira Nahar took a stroll down to the main lobby, in no hurry to return to her office, to the incessant phone calls, the pleas for help.  The limitations of technology in this era made Shira alternately laugh and grind her teeth.  Still, the job was good cover, occupying only a small fraction of her mental energy, leaving the rest of her time free to address the true reason for her sojourn in this silly backwater.

The floor had been tiled with scientific diagrams and formulae: Shira trod across a good depiction of a neuron.  There were diagrams of plant and animal cells, the molecular structures of chemicals.  Twisting up each staircase was the spiraling double helix of a DNA molecule, the fundamental building blocks of all life, everywhere.

Shira leaned over the balcony, looking out across the sun-filled atrium.  Suspended from the ceiling hung a model representing the local solar system: a good, medium-sized star and its nine satellite planets.  Shira had read extensively about Sol 3, first as a student, then in preparation for this mission.  Five billion years since the star’s birth, and the denizens of Earth were only just discerning the possibility of intelligent life beyond their solar system, a revelation that would alter its civilization irrevocably.  In another century, humanity’s outlook would be very different; at the moment, Shira found the planet’s people pleasant but dull, painfully myopic.

In historical terms, Earth’s importance could not be underestimated: it was one of the primary cradles of humanoid lifeforms.  One day, the descendents of these short-sighted people would step out among the stars, colonizing other worlds and seeding themselves across the universe.  Shira’s own ancestors had come from this fertile world, and it amused her to think that some of these people might be her distant kin: great-great-great-grandparents, or cousins many times removed.

She went still when a familiar figure came into view, striding across the lower level of the lobby.  Shira regarded him with great interest.  She’d noticed him before—wherever he went, he stood out, like the only living thing on a painted backdrop.  Ostensibly, he was here as a replacement for a murdered science faculty member.  Most people in this community—students, faculty, staff workers—didn’t pay him much notice.  A few sensitive types seemed to have detected something odd about him, something they couldn’t consciously pinpoint.  To Shira, he was like a horn blaring on a silent morning.  His visible intelligence, his regal bearing, the way he wore his clothes like an extra layer of skin—all marked him as an outsider.  But the eyes told Shira everything.  He was an alien, like her, only much more obviously so—a stranger not just from another world, but from another species.

Shira flipped open the leather band on her wrist, displaying a tiny computer inside.  She touched a couple of buttons, holding the device so that it could scan him.  A moment later, the reading popped up: a string of zeros.  She tried again: nothing.  Whatever species this man belonged to, it had not been cataloged by the Time Agency.  Shira knew he couldn’t be an android or some other mechanical construction: that would have registered as well.  And she was experienced enough, anyway, to recognize an organic life-form when she saw one.  The mystery about this man deepened.

She watched him circle the displays of student work before he turned and strode off toward one of the main doors, the long brown coat flowing behind him like a cloak.  Everything went quiet in his wake; even the molecules of air seemed to collapse in on themselves, as if they’d lost all purpose and meaning.

(iii)

“You got him?” Dr. Smith asked.

“Yeah,” said Cassie.  In her gloved hands, a healthy male squirrel chattered a loud, indignant vocalization.  He kept twisting, trying to bite her, but she had immobilized his head.  “Go for it.”

Dr. Smith slipped off his heavy gloves, and said, “Watch this.”  He placed his fingertips on either side of the squirrel’s head.  A moment later, the little rodent stopped barking and went as limp as rope in Cassie’s hands.

“What’d you do?” she squeaked.

Laughing, Dr. Smith said, “You can let him go now.”

“Is he awake?”  But the squirrel’s eyes were open, its breathing relaxed, its expression benign.  “Is he okay?”  Cassie lay him down on a nearby towel.

“He’s fine.”  Dr. Smith uncapped a syringe and gently slipped the needle into one of the squirrel’s rear legs.  Blood flowed into the tiny vacuum tube.  With the sample collected, Dr. Smith removed the needle.

“That’s amazing,” said Cassie.  “How’d you do that?”

Dr. Smith winked.  He labeled the tube and placed it in a metal rack with a dozen others.  “There, I think that gives us a representative sample.”  He touched his fingers again to the squirrel’s head, and the animal sprang up, fully alert, dashing for the safety of the nearest tree.  “And now for some DNA analysis.”

Climbing to her feet, Cassie said, “Seriously, how’d you do that?”

Dr. Smith, she had discovered, never answered questions when he didn’t want to.

“ _Allons-y_ ,” he said, scooping up the box trap that had been baited with walnuts.  Cassie collected the test tubes and put the used syringes into a leather pouch, to be disposed of back at the lab.

She followed behind Dr. Smith, perplexed and frustrated.  How had he made the squirrel so docile?  Some kind of hypnosis?  He strode ahead of her, Cassie almost running to keep up with him.

Their path back to Klugman took them past the college center, and Cassie discerned an unusual amount of activity for this hour of the morning.  A few worried-looking students were clustered on the walkway in front of the building.

“Hello, what’s all this?”  Dr. Smith veered to the right.

“What’s going on?” Cassie asked the first student she saw.

“Vandalism, I heard,” the boy responded.

“Where?” asked Dr. Smith.

“In the student activity offices.”

Dr. Smith hurried into the lobby, Cassie on his heels.  A security guard tried to stop them, but Dr. Smith brushed him off like a fly.

“Has Dr. Holland been alerted yet?” asked Dr. Smith, suddenly commanding.

The guard sputtered.

“Well, get on it, man!” Dr. Smith ordered, and he pushed through the door to the stairwell, magnificent even with the squirrel trap in his arms.

The student activity offices occupied the upper two levels of the student center, a warren of cozy cubicles.

“Don’t touch anything,” Dr. Smith warned Cassie.

“I won’t,” she promised.

He set down the rack, and Cassie placed her test tubes on top of it.  They went from office to office.  The first two were untouched, and the third had been trashed: posters torn to shreds, files strewn about, a computer smashed.

“What’s this?” Dr. Smith asked.  “Whose office?”

Cassie checked the wall tag.  “Christian Alliance.”

Somehow, she knew what they would find even before they moved on to the next cubicle.  All the offices for the campus religious organizations had been vandalized, their property destroyed.  The Jewish Student Union, the Interfaith Council, the Islamic Student Alliance, the Buddhist Society, the Newman Association, Green Mountain Pagans—all had been quite deliberately trashed.

“Nothing else was touched?” asked Dr. Smith.  He kept his voice low, though they were the only people on the floors.  Cassie felt a creeping sense of horror, despite the sunlight streaming in through the tall windows.

“Nothing—the student government offices, the class offices, Campus Republicans, Campus Democrats—the secular organizations are fine.  Here’s where they print the campus newspaper.”  On a bulletin board, someone had tacked up the front page of a New York _Times_ from the previous June, the headline printed in a huge font reserved for the assassinations of presidents and declarations of war: WE ARE NOT ALONE.

Cassie and Dr. Smith ventured up to the third floor, but paused when they heard an odd noise coming from down the hall, a low _krrrrrrk_ and a quiet rustling.

Dr. Smith put a finger to his mouth, and they crept on tiptoe down to the end of the corridor.  Inside, the office for the college Gospel Choir lay in shambles.  And standing on an upturned chair was an enormous black bird, ruffling its feathers and shifting from one foot to the other.

“It’s a raven,” Cassie whispered.

“Yes, I see that,” Dr. Smith whispered back.

“What’re we gonna do?  You can’t catch something that size in a mist net.”

“I’ll distract it, and you go open the window.”

“Are you _kidding_?” Cassie hissed.

Dr. Smith began to imitate the raven’s call, such perfect mimicry that the great bird turned its head and stared at him, mesmerized.  Dr. Smith gave Cassie a little nudge.  She crept into the office, keeping as wide a berth as possible from the creature: that raven could do a lot of damage with its big beak, and the thing was agitated from its confinement.  But Dr. Smith held its attention rapt.  Cassie clambered across the piles of junk, finally reaching the window.  She undid the two latches and pushed the window up, then unfastened the screen and pushed that up as well.

“Duck!” Dr. Smith ordered.

Cassie dropped, crouching in a corner.  Dr. Smith began to yell, flapping his arms and lunging toward the raven.  The bird let out a loud _krrrrk_ , hopped up, and made a flying dive for freedom.  Its broad wingspan just cleared the window frame on its way out.

“Good work!” Dr. Smith praised.

“Holy shit!” Cassie gasped.

Dr. Smith surveyed the room.  “Quoth the raven, ‘nevermore,’” he murmured under his breath.

“Who the hell put that poor thing in here?” asked Cassie, closing the window.  “And look—it shit everywhere.”  Bird droppings splattered the upturned furniture and scattered papers, and the small space reeked of ammonia.

“The symbolism,” Dr. Smith said, his focus turned inward.  “That’s why they did it.  Ravens and crows are traditional symbols of death.”

Though Cassie enjoyed folklore, she’d never been able to muster much grace in the face of unscientific attitudes.  “Probably because they’re carrion-eaters—people saw the birds feeding off dead things and must’ve assumed they were involved with the afterlife.”

“Nevertheless, whoever put that bird in here must be trying to scare people.”

Scornfully, Cassie said, “They don’t scare me.  Mad, maybe, but not scared.”

“Indeed,” said Dr. Smith, smiling, and Cassie felt wobbly in the legs for a moment.

They heard voices, and a moment later, Dr. Holland appeared, accompanied by the indignant security guard.

“We haven’t touched anything,” Dr. Smith said.  “Some prankster trapped a raven in here, but we let it out the window.”

“It’s the same as in the meditation garden.”  Dr. Holland appeared troubled.  “Anything connected to religious expression is destroyed.”

Cassie said, “Does someone have something against God?”  Then she said, “I hope this isn’t some atheists trying to make a statement.  We’ll never hear the end of it.”

Dr. Smith glanced at Dr. Holland.  “Do you think that’s possible?”

Dr. Holland said, “I couldn’t even tell you who the atheists on this campus are, let alone how many we have.”

“Cassie?” asked Dr. Smith.  “Any ideas?”

“I dunno,” she said.  “I don’t think there’s any kind of formal organization.  I only know one kid, off the top of my head, who’s an atheist.  He was in one of my classes freshman year—I can’t even remember his name.  My take is that as long as they’re not being forced to pray or go to chapel services or anything like that, they’re happy.  I can’t see any of them doing something this extreme.”

“I’d say that’s accurate,” Dr. Holland nodded.  “There might be one or two atheist faculty, but I doubt they’d destroy property as a means of protest.”

They heard the faint chime of the chapel bell, and Dr. Smith said, “Cassie, if you don’t mind, I need to speak with Dr. Holland in private.”

“Okay,” she said.  “I’ll put the stuff in the lab.”

“Thank you,” he said.

Cassie hurried down to the first floor, picking up the squirrel trap and blood samples along the way.  Something about the whole incident disturbed her, the same way the vandalism of the meditation garden had disturbed her.  While she wasn’t a deeply religious person, she felt strongly about people’s rights to express their beliefs, and it bothered her to see the angry desecration of such a fundamental ideal.  Beneath the obvious destruction of property, though, lay something darker, something sinister, something Cassie couldn’t quite pinpoint, but which nevertheless made her feel frightened and sick.

She emerged into the bright sunlight, grateful for the warm sunlight and the presence of other people, though the unsettling sense of malevolence lingered in the corners of her thoughts for the rest of the day.

(iv)

The faculty apartments occupied a street adjacent to the campus, a row of dreary, functional buildings, lacking the grace of red brick and green ivy and tall windows.  Shira wrinkled her nose at the concrete and cheap vinyl, glad she’d been able to secure better accommodations for this mission.  A few apartments showed signs of life: curtains in the windows, pretty mailboxes, baby strollers, toys.  Others were unoccupied, the drawn blinds lending a blank look to the properties.

One advantage of working for IT was that hacking into the personnel database had been ridiculously easy.  Shira had discovered that John Smith wasn’t on payroll, which must mean that he had no official identification number.  The Time Agency, of course, had provided Shira with all the documentation she’d needed, including the nine-digit number without which employment in this part of Earth was impossible.  John Smith had a college e-mail address, an office and phone extension, and an address at one of these apartments, but beyond that, nothing.

Shira had also checked his schedule to ascertain that at this hour of the afternoon, he’d be occupied with a lengthy biology lab.  Perfect.  She hurried down the road, checking apartment numbers.  On this side of the avenue, the numbers were all even.  Eight, ten, twelve—there it was: number fourteen.

She checked the black metal letterbox out front: unmarked and empty.  No name on the door, either, and the drawn blinds made the place appear unoccupied.  A small, rusty automobile sat in the dilapidated driveway.  Residents of Sol 3, at least in this region, seemed very fond of their conveyances.  Shira wrinkled her nose: the humans here still burned fossil fuels.  How could they tolerate getting about in these slow-moving, inefficient, smelly things?  A layer of pollen dust and dry leaves covered the vehicle, suggesting Smith hadn’t used it for a while.

Shira rapped at the door.  Silence.  Satisfied that he hadn’t nipped home unexpectedly, she extracted a set of lock picks from a leather envelope on her tool belt and used one of the tiny devices to let herself into Smith’s apartment.

She took care not to touch anything: marks in the dust would betray her presence.  By the look of things, the shabby furniture hadn’t been used for some time, and Shira saw no evidence of personal possessions.  The kitchen was bare, empty, nothing in the musty fridge, no food in the cabinets.  In the bedroom she found a couple of stripped mattresses in a metal frame, an empty closet, an empty chest of drawers.

Stumped, she circled around again.  Where did he sleep?  What did he eat?  Even the water in the toilet had evaporated.  She checked behind each door, finding only empty closets.  But there was a locked door off the kitchen.  Shira reached again for her lock picks.

A flight of wooden steps led down to a basement.  Shira flicked on the electric light, and here, at last, she found signs of habitation.  A clothes washer and dryer stood against one concrete wall, and from rope lines strung overhead hung a couple of men’s button-down shirts, undershirts, shorts, and socks.  Smith, she’d observed, always wore the same suit, though he varied his shirts.  Hanging by their laces were two pairs of athletic shoes: one black, one white.

His laundry, however, didn’t interest her.  In one corner of the room stood a tall blue box, ostensibly made of wood, though she suspected it was only a surface veneer.  The thing hummed and vibrated, faint light glowing through the frosted windows near the top.  Shira placed her hands flat against two of the panels, feeling the mechanical throb of an engine within.  She tried the door: locked.  She tried every pick in her kit with no luck; the door must be dead-locked.  Shira consulted her wrist strap, noting with satisfaction the readings that suggested recent time travel.  _Yes_.  He was the one.  Grinning, she hurried up the steps, switching out the light and shutting the door, then let herself out of the apartment and locked the exterior door as well.  At last she was getting somewhere.

(v)

When the workday ended, Shira returned to the apartment.  Night had fallen, chilly darkness settling over the mountainous community.  She hunched down into her sweater, making a mental note to pick up some warmer clothes: winter here would be snowy and cold.  Lights had come on in the other apartments, but Smith’s lay in darkness.

She waited in the living room: if Smith wanted to get to the basement, he’d need to pass through this room.  Shira crouched in the shadow behind an armchair, waiting.  Her left hand went to the handcuffs on her belt, while in her mind she reviewed her plan of attack.

An hour later, with Shira growing cold, hungry, and impatient, the front door opened.  Smith didn’t bother with lights, striding toward the kitchen, just as Shira had expected.

She coiled like a spring, then leaped out, colliding with his long body and punching him in the temple, knocking him clear to the floor.  A leather satchel hit the carpet beside him; Shira pushed it away.  Smith was tall but very thin, and Shira wrestled him onto his back with less effort than she’d expected, straddling him with her legs.  Before she lost the element of surprise, she cuffed one of his wrists, grabbed the other arm, and cuffed his hands together.

“Right,” she said, unclipping her tiny flashlight and shining the bright yellow beam in his face.  He was still stunned from the blow to the head, but he showed more irritation than fear.  “There’s no point playing games, so why don’t you tell me right now: what did you do with the Mouth of Quincunx?”

**To be continued…**


	5. Angels of the Silences--Chapter Four

Chapter Four

_A Long December_

He stared up at her, pupils tiny in the bright light.  Then, to Shira’s vast annoyance, he broke into loud peals of laughter.

“The mouth of _what_?  A quincunx is a geometric figure or a Roman coin—how can one have a mouth?”

“Don’t be coy,” she ordered.  “I’ve seen your teleport downstairs.  You’ve come here through time to retrieve the Mouth of Quincunx.  Why else would you be here?”

“For any number of reasons,” he retorted.  “And I have no idea what you’re talking about, so why don’t you let me up, and we can talk about this sensibly?”

“Right,” she snorted.  “Now, tell me who you are and why you’re here, and while we’re at it, what species you belong to, or this will get very unpleasant for you.”

“Oooh,” he leered, showing his tongue.  “Tell me more.”

She smacked him hard across the face.  “How’s that for starters—?”  Then she broke off, feeling a hard ridge rise up against the inside of her thigh.  “You bastard!”

“You tackled me and pulled out the handcuffs,” he shot back.  “How am I supposed to react?”

Shira hit him again, which only provoked more laughter.

“Go on,” he taunted.  “I’ve been worked over by the most feared torturers in all of time and space—you really think I can be bullied by a two-bit dominatrix like you?”

Shira’s face grew hot.  “Right,” she said, reaching for the tiny electric prod on her belt.  “You’ll pay for that wisecrack.”

“Is this what they teach in archaeology school these days?”  Shira froze for an instant, and he went on, “What would your esteemed colleagues say if they saw you behaving like this, _Professor_?”

“Tell me what you know,” she ordered.

“I know who you are,” he said, eyes narrowed.  “Your name is a clever bit of camouflage—Nahar is Hebrew for ‘river,’ and Shira’s a Hebrew name that means ‘song.’  You’re Professor River Song, an archaeologist from the 51st century.”

“And you’re an alien from another time,” she accused.

“Right back at you,” he said.  “That vortex manipulator on your wrist—do you work for the Time Agency, or did they hire you for this job only?”  River wavered, and he said, “Come on, Professor.  The amateur thug routine doesn’t suit you.  You’re too clever for it.”

“Where are you from?” River asked.  “What are you?”

“I’m a Time Lord.”

“Time Lords are extinct,” she snorted.

“I’m the last one.”

“Prove it.”

“Feel my pulse.”

Curious now, River felt for his jugular.  Beneath the skin, she detected not one throbbing pulse, but two.  Intrigued, she opened his jacket and placed her hands on his chest.  Just faintly, she could feel the rhythmic percussion of two hearts.

“This doesn’t prove anything,” she said.

“How many humanoid species have two hearts?”  She glared and he said, “Well?  How many?”

River flipped open her wrist strap and entered the parameters for humanoid, two hearts.  The tiny monitor blinked, and a moment later, it displayed a reading, “Time Lord: Gallifrey (extinct).”

She exhaled.  “This doesn’t prove anything—how could you be alive, anyway?  Gallifrey was destroyed centuries ago, in the last Time War.”

“I survived,” he stated.

“How?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

River stared down at him, the intelligent face, the unflinching courage.  In the depths of his gaze she could see the truth of what he’d said—there was something dark in there, something ruthless and hard, and the profound sadness of a survivor’s solitude.

“Come on, let me up,” he said.  “My legs are falling asleep.  You don’t even need to uncuff me.  I’ll show you proof, if you’re still not convinced.”

With great reluctance, River climbed off him, pulling him to his feet.

“It’s in the cellar,” he said.

River used her lock pick to open the door to the basement.  “You first,” she said, flipping on the light.

He didn’t try anything funny, just went straight to the transmat module.  Standing before the tall blue doors, he snapped the fingers of his right hand.  One of the doors swung inward.

“How’d you do that?” River asked.

He didn’t answer, grinning and striding through the door.  River hesitated, then followed him.

“Oh, God,” she said, staring around the room.  “It’s—this isn’t a transmat module.”

“No, it’s a TARDIS—that’s an acronym for time and relative dimensions in space.”

River had read about the Time Lords in her graduate studies—well, she’d read what little material existed: the Time Lords hadn’t shared much of themselves with outsiders, and their history consisted of second- and third-hand anecdotes.  Without question, though, they had mastered time travel eons before anyone else, more successfully, and to a far greater extent.  To River, the accounts had seemed more like legend than actual history, but now she found herself face-to-face with one of those near-mythic beings—the last one.

While she’d been standing there, flabbergasted, he’d maneuvered his cuffed hands into a trouser pocket and pulled out something, a slim metal tube.  River heard a sonic whine; too late, she realized he’d freed himself.

“Here,” he said, tossing the cuffs back to her.  “I believe those are yours.”

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing.

“Sonic screwdriver,” he said, pocketing the device before she could get a better look at it.

River made a slow circuit of the control panel, staring up at the tall, translucent columns that rose to the ceiling.  The panel itself had a comical junk shop look, all odd bits and ends.  River didn’t try to touch anything, instead listening to the quiet, almost musical sounds that reverberated throughout the incredible machine.  While she looked, Smith stood waiting, arms folded, leaning against one of the support pillars.

“All right, you’re a Time Lord,” she said, convinced at last.  “With the whole universe at your disposal, what are you doing in this backwater?”

“A favor to Charlie Holland,” he said.  “One of his faculty died under mysterious circumstances a couple of months ago.  I’m taking her place for the year while I try to learn what happened to her.”

“That’s it?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“You really aren’t here for the Mouth of Quincunx?”

“I have no idea what that even is.”

River sighed.  She knew she’d be crazy to trust any stranger on this assignment, but something about the man suggested an uncommon degree of integrity.  She decided to take her chances.

“This is the Mouth of Quincunx.”  She opened her vortex manipulator and showed him a three-dimensional hologram of the missing artifact.

He took a closer look, putting on a pair of black-rimmed spectacles to study the image.  The Mouth of Quincunx was a small stone carving, meant to resemble a seated man.  The arms were held parallel to each other, raised over the head, so that his curled fists formed a square with his kneecaps.  The head was large, exaggerated, and his yawning mouth created the fifth point at the center of the square.  River personally found nothing interesting or attractive about the artifact—the face was too menacing, too leering—but its historical importance was what made it so valuable to the people who’d lost it.

“All right, now I understand the name,” Smith said, looking up at River, baffled.  “Is the Time Agency really paying you to find that grotesque little bauble?”

“It’s the oldest archeological artifact ever discovered on the planet Jahoo,” River explained, “dating back to their prehistory.  It’s been in a museum in the capital for centuries, until it vanished a year ago—a year ago, my time,” she added.  “The people there consider it a priceless, irreplaceable treasure, and they’re frantic to get it back.”  She switched off the hologram.

“I see.”  He rubbed his chin, looking like he didn’t believe it.  “What’s the Time Agency offering you to retrieve it?”

“Five million credits.”

He sputtered, “Five _million_?”

“It’s enough money, even after the Agency takes its commission, to fund my research for the next decade.  It seemed a simple enough errand.”

“So, why here?  Why Earth?  Why this corner of Earth at this particular point in time?”

“I took readings on-site at the museum,” River told him.  “There were strong indications that a space-time rift had opened up, and the coordinates, as near as I could determine, suggested the artifact had fallen through to this part of Earth, somewhere in the past year.”

She watched Smith rub his chin.  “In the past year?”

“Yes.”

“Allowing for some time differentials…” he murmured, lost in thought for a moment.  “I can tell you why it happened,” he said, re-focusing his attention on River.  “Earth and Jahoo both were moved from their solar systems to the Medusa Cascade about four months ago, local time.  It must’ve caused enough disturbance to cause temporary rift activity on both planets.”

“Whole planets were moved?” River echoed.  “Moved _how_?  By who?”

He unfolded and re-folded his arms.  “Daleks.”

“Daleks are extinct—oh, God.”  River felt a surge of panic.  “Please don’t tell me—”

“There’s nothing to worry about—for the moment,” he said.  “They’ve been… dealt with.”

River connected the pieces in an instant.  “Your work?”

He looked angry and bleak, profoundly sad.  “Yes.”

Her breath whistled out, and she stared at him with something akin to awe.  “Reading about them was bad enough.  I’m amazed you’re still standing.”  So there was more, much more, to this man than met the eye.

He re-directed the topic.  “So, now we know why the artifact vanished.”

“It’s likely within a thirty kilometer radius of this town.”  River showed him a three-dimensional hologram of the region, the campus and town, surrounded by wooded hills.  “My biggest worry is that it might’ve landed in the middle of a forest somewhere.  Winter’s coming on, and the thing could end up buried in snow.”

“Can’t you detect rift energy with that thing?”  He nodded his chin at her wrist strap.

“Of course I’ve tried that!” she snapped.  “Do I look like an imbecile?  I should’ve been able to collect the artifact in five minutes flat.  But I can’t detect any rift energy, anywhere, certainly not focused around one object.  That’s why I had to go undercover, because I need to look the old-fashioned way.”

Smith went to the console and began flipping levers.  “The TARDIS is more powerful and sensitive than your vortex manipulator,” he stated.  “We should pick up even minute traces of…” he faltered, staring at the monitor.  “Nothing.”  He toggled a few buttons.  “You’re sure it fell through to this point?”

“Positive.”

Stumped, Smith stood motionless for a few moments.  “If it’s here, something might be shielding it,” he said.

“That would take technology far beyond what these people have developed,” River argued.

“Unless someone here got their hands on alien technology,” Smith mused.  “It’s a bad habit they’ve developed.

“Know what I’m worried about?” River laughed.  “That someone found the thing lying on a sidewalk, and they’re using it as a garden ornament.”

“You’ve looked?” he smiled.

“In every damn yard I pass,” she grinned.  “If anyone asks, I tell them I’m a horticulture aficionado.  Then, “So, what happened with this murdered professor?”

“Lucille Cavanaugh.  At the end of summer, her body turned up in some woods nearby.  Her throat had been slit.  There were lacerations on her arm, done with a knife.  It also looked like something tried to bite her arm, but barely broke the skin.  The bite marks showed an energy signature that comes from trans-dimensional travel.”

“Trans-dimensional?  Not rift energy?”

“No, the two are completely different.  The strange thing was that the particles were only in the bite marks, nowhere else on her body, as if whatever bit her had been through a dimensional wall.”

River frowned, “Is cross-dimensional travel even possible?”

“Under certain circumstances.  As a rule, it’s incredibly dangerous.”

“So, whatever bit her might have come from another dimension?”

“Possibly.  The bite marks looked very weak.”

“Did you have a chance to look through Dr. Cavanaugh’s effects?  Could she have found the Mouth of Quincunx?”

“Before her office and home were cleaned out, I slipped in and had a look.  There was nothing unusual.”  Smith gave River a tired smile.  “And no, she didn’t have any garden ornaments.  The odd thing is that before she died, she left a phone message for Charlie, suggesting she’d found something out of the ordinary.  She said she thought it would impact the whole town, and it made her suspicious of using telephones.”

“Was there any basis to her suspicions?”

“Well, I’ve taken the liberty of scanning the phone lines in this area, as well as the local cell tower.”  Smith gently slapped the console; from this control room, it seemed, he could do just about anything.  “There’s no indication the communication lines are being monitored by any kind of non-terrestrial.”

“And Dr. Holland had no idea what she was referring to in her message?”

“No, she was being rather cryptic, I’m afraid.  It’s why he asked me to look into it, but so far, I haven’t found anything.”

“Can you detect evidence of cross-dimensional travel?”

He fished into a pocket and drew out an odd-looking pair of spectacles, the frames made of white paper, the rectangular lenses of two different colors, like a cheap and flimsy child’s toy.  “These can pick up anything that’s been across a dimensional wall,” he said.  “Here, try them out.”

River gave the things a dubious look, but she curbed her skepticism and put them on her nose.  At once, Smith seemed to pop out at her, surrounded by a swirling cloud of colorful micro-particles.

“Now, look at yourself,” he instructed.

River examined her own hand, but she found it looked completely normal.

“I’ve traveled across dimensions,” he said.  “You haven’t.”

“These are ingenious,” she said, slipping off the eyewear.  “If quaintly low-tech.  So, you’ve had a look?”

“And found nothing that’s been across a dimensional wall,” he said.

“So, what do you think happened?”

“Even if the bite marks were made by something that came from another dimension,” he said, “it was still a human being that killed her.  The cut marks were done with a knife, and they had no trace of the energy on them.  Maybe something made its way across a dimensional wall last June, when the planet was moved and the fabric of the multiverse was weakened.  But well before Lucille Cavanaugh died, the walls between universes had stabilized again.  I’ve had the TARDIS computer scanning for dimensional weaknesses a few times a day for over a month, and nothing.”

“Maybe whatever bit her went back to its own dimension,” River suggested.

“That’s possible.  It might’ve been pulled back across the void to wherever it came from.  I just don’t like the idea of anyone or anything hopping willy-nilly between the dimensions.  That can only lead to very bad things happening.”

“Maybe whatever attacked her was looking for the Mouth of Quincunx.”

He snorted, “It might be the most important thing in the universe to you at this moment, but why would anyone else even care about it?”

“Money, I suppose,” she shrugged.  “The great leveler.”

“What’s so special about that thing, anyway?”

“Because it wasn’t even supposed to exist,” River told him.  “The pre-historical civilizations on Jahoo wiped themselves out in a horrific war, and the only reason anyone knows about them is a few foundations, a handful of spearheads, pieces of broken pottery, and fragments of bone.  The Mouth of Quincunx was found intact in some of those ruins, and it’s the only hint of the planet’s pre-historical culture—it’s estimated that maybe a few hundred people survived the massacre.  They didn’t leave any written records.  Everything’s conjecture.”

“That still only makes it valuable to the people of Jahoo,” Smith pointed out.  “Nobody else would care.”

“So, we have two mysteries,” said River.  “A murdered professor who was bitten by something from another dimension, and an artifact that should be in this region at this time, but is nowhere that can be detected.”

“Three mysteries, actually,” Smith told her.  “There’s also been vandalism on campus of religious icons and student religious organizations.  Whoever trashed the student offices left a raven behind as some kind of warning or threat.”

“Do you think these things are connected?” asked River.

“That’s too much coincidence for one small town,” Smith answered.  “I’ve lived too long to believe that could ever be coincidence.”

“So, what do you suggest?”

“We keep looking,” he said.

“Two sets of eyes are better than one?”  River smiled.  She liked that he’d said “we.”

He grinned back, head cocked to one side at a cheeky angle.  River wondered how many women he’d tumbled into bed using that particular expression.

“Exactly!” he beamed.  Something seemed to occur to him at that moment.  “What’s the significance of the Mouth of Quincunx?  Any clues?”

“It was found in a ruin that almost certainly was a fortress,” River told him.  “Lots of pieces of weapons were discovered there.  The Mouth of Quincunx might’ve been a battle totem or a representation of a war god.  But why am I telling you all this?  You could go back and look for yourself.”

“Best not to,” he said.  “I’m part of events now, and if I go back, I might discover something that’ll make me do something here that I shouldn’t.”

She nodded, frustrated, but understanding.  “So, what’re you thinking—that there might be a connection between the Mouth of Quincunx and the destruction of the religious icons here?”

“There might be, especially if the Mouth of Quincunx was an object of worship back on Jahoo.  If there’s one thing people will kill each other over more than money, it’s their gods.”  He put his hands in his pockets, looking pensive.

“This weekend, I’m going to comb the woods,” River told him.  “That’s been my first priority, to cover as much ground as possible before snow flies.  Want to join me?”

“All right,” he smiled.

“I’ll be here at eight o’clock on Saturday morning, then.  Is that too early?”

“No, it’s perfect.”

“So, it’s a date?”  Her smile grew wider.

“Only if you bring the handcuffs.”  His tone was light, but a smile made River feel a warm, familiar pulse of interest.

“Play your cards right,” she teased.  Then she said, “I should get going,” though she was reluctant to leave.  “Thank you for your help.  I’m sorry about thrashing you earlier.”  She wasn’t, not really, but she figured it would be good form to apologize.

“Oh, but you’re so good at it,” he said.  A naughty gleam had come into his eyes, and River felt the warm pulse grow into a flush of real heat.  With luck, she could do something about it—but later.  With this particular man, she sensed it would be wisest not to move too fast or too soon.

They went back up through his apartment.  “As long as we’re working together, what’s your name?” she asked.  “I assume John Smith is some kind of alias.”

“I’m the Doctor,” he said.

“That’s another alias.”

“No, it’s my name.  The Doctor.”

“Oh, don’t be coy.”

“That’s my name,” he insisted.

“That _can’t_ have been what you were named at birth.  Doctor is a title, not a name.”

“It’s my name.  Is this going to be a problem?”

“You know _my_ name.”

“All right, then, I’ll keep calling you Shira Nahar.”

“Stop it,” she said.  “You’re being insufferable.”

“I’m the Doctor.”

“All right, all right!”  River gave up out of sheer exasperation.  It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if all Time Lords went by such pretentious titles, but then she remembered he was the only one, and she felt a stab of unfamiliar shame.  Given the destruction of his planet and species, he might well have very good reasons for wanting to keep his true name a secret.

Tugging the lapel of his coat, she asked, “Are you always so impossible?”

“Invariably,” he smiled.

“Eight on Saturday,” she said.  “I’ll bring coffee.”

“Brilliant.”

She made her way back down the street, head spinning, grateful for the chilly air on her warm face.

(ii)

Up ahead lay the finish line—the two most beautiful words in the English language.  Cassie’s lungs burned, an agony in her chest, and her legs felt as weak as banana peels.  Sweat ran into her eyes, and she could feel the fire of blisters on her feet.  She was quite certain she would keel over from exhaustion at any moment, but she kept her legs in motion, plodding toward that white line on the pavement.

“Cassie!  Cassie!”  Nearby, Chelsea and Exa were jumping up and down, waving their arms and screaming.  “You can do it!  You can do it!”

Their encouragement gave Cassie a much-needed a bolt of adrenaline, and she shot across the finish line, feeling a little more like an athlete and a little less like roadkill.

“Cassie!  Ohmigod, you’re awesome!”  Chelsea and Exa swooped up beside her.

Cassie checked her sports watch, cringing at the time.  “I’m so rusty,” she winced.  “God, I’m just dead.”

“Come on,” said Exa, and they steered her across the town square.  All around the green, athletes were cooling down, re-hydrating, laughing and stretching, talking with friends, comparing times, retrieving their bikes.  The Green Mountain Triathlon had drawn a sizable crowd of people to Vermont, their numbers swollen by tourists seeking late foliage and high school students on college admissions trips.

“Here.”  Exa thrust a large bottle of Gatorade into Cassie’s hands.  Cassie took several long, grateful swallows: her tongue felt like a shriveled, leathery thing in her mouth.

“Thanks,” she said.  “You rock.”

Chelsea wrapped a big towel around Cassie’s shoulders.  “Come on, keep walking.”

Cassie wanted to curl up and die, but she knew the importance of cooling down.  Exa passed her a Power Bar.

“Ohmigod, thanks,” Cassie said, tearing into the thing.

“How’re you doing?” asked Chelsea.

“Like I could keel over.”  Cassie had begun to shake.  “You have my sweatshirt?”

Chelsea pulled Cassie’s thick hoodie from a backpack, and Cassie slid into the thick, plush warmth with a grateful sigh.

“Try stretching,” Exa suggested.

Cassie leaned against a nearby lamp post, grabbing an ankle to stretch her quadriceps muscles.

“Ow, ow, ow.”

“Do I feel a massage coming on?” Chelsea joked.

“I have an appointment for later this week.  God, I’m wasted.”  Cassie grabbed her other ankle.  “I am so gonna regret this tomorrow.”

“You were awesome, though,” Exa said.  “I’d have been dog meat after two laps in the pool.”

“It was all those hills,” Cassie winced.  “My legs were like spaghetti before we even started the run.  And this was just a sprint tri—if I ever tried to do Olympic length, it’d kill me.”  She scanned Main Street through bleary eyes.  Tourists flocked around the shops and restaurants; outside Tomasso’s, a line stretched onto the sidewalk.

Exa, following her line of gaze, asked, “You eat there yet?”

“No, but everyone says it’s awesome.  I should check out their pasta.”  Cassie was stretching her hamstrings.  “What’s that smell?”

“Something burning?” Chelsea volunteered.

“That’s not from a restaurant,” said Exa.  “It smells more like a burning building.”

“I thought I heard sirens last night,” Chelsea said.  “Maybe there was a fire.”

“You sure?” asked Cassie.  “I didn’t hear anything.”

“I know what a fire smells like,” Exa stated.  Her father was a firefighter, and if anyone could detect the stink of a blaze from half a city away, it was Exa.  “C’mon, let’s go look.”

They wandered away from the downtown area, Cassie still drinking Gatorade; her legs at least had stopped singing “Ave Maria.”  The acrid charcoal smell grew stronger, and after a block, Exa stopped and pointed.

“There,” she said.

They drew closer.  In a row of modest residences, one house had been blackened, gutted.  It looked like a tooth missing from someone’s mouth.  The two houses to either side had been scorched, soaked with water to keep them from burning also.

“Oh, wow,” said Chelsea.  “That looks bad.”

They couldn’t get too close: the entire road had been blocked off with yellow hazard tape.

A young police officer sat in a cruiser nearby.  Exa flashed him a smile, tossing back her long hair.  He rolled down the window, staring at her breasts.

“Hey, what happened?” she asked.  “Looks pretty bad.”

“House burned down,” the officer told her.  “Everyone inside was killed.  It started with some unattended candles.”

“Wow,” said Exa.  “Was the street evacuated?”

“Yeah, there’s some water damage to the houses on either side.”

“Poor people,” Exa whistled.

The cop shrugged.  “Candles are bad news.”

On their way back down the street, Cassie said, “I’m surprised they still let the race run.”

“The street isn’t near the race course,” Exa said.  “And a lot of people came up for it.  They weren’t going to cancel it unless they really had to.”

“This is Middleton Street,” Chelsea said.  They’d reached the intersection with Main Street, and she was examining the street signs.

“So?” asked Exa.

“That house.  Oh, my God.”

“Why, what?” asked Cassie.

“It’s in the second block from Main Street.  Number 205.”

“D’you know who lived there?” asked Exa.

“A woman named Sandra Bergeron.  She runs the health food co-op—you know, the place where you can rent cross-country skis in winter?”

“Oh, God!  We got skis there freshman year, right?” asked Exa.

“Yeah,” said Chelsea, visibly distressed.  “She’s also the high priestess of the local Wiccan circle.  I’ve been to her house.  Oh, God, she must be dead.”

“Shit,” said Exa.  “That’s awful!”

“Last night was Halloween,” Chelsea went on.  “They must’ve been doing a ritual.”  She covered her mouth with her hand.  “Ohmigod,” she said, eyes welling up.

Cassie put an arm around her.  “Let’s go look,” she said.

About a block further down Main Street sat Nature’s Place co-op, a small grocery store that specialized in organic and specialty health foods.  Cassie liked the store’s hippy, low-key ambiance, but the prices were too outrageous for a college student on financial aid.  To supplement an income from what must be a small clientele, Sandra Bergeron also rented cross-country skis from the store’s basement during the winter months.

Now the shop sat shuttered and dark, and a brief handwritten note on the door only said that due to an unforeseen tragedy, the co-op would be closed for at least another week.

“Oh, no!” said Chelsea, tears spilling over.  “Poor Sandy!”

“Shh, c’mon,” whispered Exa, rubbing Chelsea’s back.  “Let’s get back to campus.”

“I need to get my bike,” Cassie said.  The day had started out sunny and mild, but now a thin layer of clouds covered the sky, and a chilly wind had sprung up, driving dry leaves and discarded newspapers ahead of it.  Winter was inescapably on its way, the season of coldness and death.  Cassie trudged on aching, blistered feet back to the town square.

(iii)

“Hey, isn’t that Professor Hotpants?”

“Do you mean Dr. Smith?”  Cassie turned in her seat.  Near the restaurant door stood Dr. Smith, his long brown coat over his blue suit, hands in his trouser pockets, bouncing slightly with either nervousness or excitement.  His burgundy necktie perfectly matched his Converse sneakers.

“God, he’s nice,” Exa sighed.

Chelsea took a peek as well.  “I’m so jealous of you, Cass.”

Cassie turned back around, smiling.  “Yeah, he’s pretty easy on the eyes.”  She and Exa had taken Chelsea out to Tomasso’s for dessert and cappuccino the Sunday after the triathlon.  Local news sources had confirmed that Sandra Bergeron and her entire coven of eight other women had perished in the Halloween fire; the town had been in a state of mourning all week.  Perhaps for that reason, Tomasso’s was almost empty.

“Who’s that woman with him?” asked Exa.

Cassie turned around again, and her heart dropped; for no good reason, the lyrics of a Paula Cole song came to mind: _I nearly died; I suicided softly_.  Shira Nahar had just walked into the restaurant, removing a colorful knit cap, her cheeks pink with cold, her mane of crazy curls spilling around the shoulders of a loden-green wool coat.  Dr. Smith’s gaze was fixed on her with a singular intensity, his eyes big and round.  Shira greeted him with a wide smile; they spoke for a moment, and Shira tossed some loose change into the wishing well.  Dr. Smith said something that made her laugh loud enough to cause heads to turn.

Tomasso emerged, and with a beaming smile, he led the pair to a table on the other side of the room.

Keeping her voice down, Cassie said, “That’s Shira Nahar.  She’s the new assistant director of IT.”  She hoped she sounded neutral, casual.

“Are they a couple?” asked Exa.

“Maybe,” said Cassie.  “It doesn’t look like a professional lunch.”

“Lucky bitch,” Exa laughed.

Cassie turned her attention back to her luscious chocolate cheesecake, feeling a weight of unfamiliar depression.  She didn’t think she could have borne Dr. Cavanaugh’s death without Dr. Smith’s cheerful support, his upbeat and often crazy sense of humor.  She realized how much she’d begun to lean on him emotionally, and she hated the thought of having to share him with someone else.  Making the matter even more wretched, she genuinely liked Shira Nahar.  Then she wondered: _would seeing them together be any easier if I hated her?_

When it looked like they’d all finished their desserts, Cassie put a twenty-dollar bill on the table.  “C’mon,” she said.  She silently blessed her friends’ perceptiveness: neither Chelsea nor Exa asked why Cassie wanted to leave so soon.

(iv)

River awoke one morning in November, aware of some change, some subtle difference in the atmosphere.  A quick look out the window confirmed that snow had been falling for several hours and still was coming down.  Outside the rented chalet, the world was transformed, an enchanted place of spruce green and pure white.

Excited, she washed, dressed, and threw on her warm clothes.  Her last three projects had all been in baking hot deserts; River enjoyed heat, preferring warm climates over cold, but now she found herself giddy as a child at the prospect of this wintry playground.

She didn’t bother shoveling the steps or walkway, tromping instead through shin-deep snow.  She reached down and scooped up a handful of it: light, dry, the individual flakes tiny, almost pellet-light.  River held it to her cheek, tasted some of it, then tossed the handful down, delighted at its feather-softness.

The chalet lay about half a mile from the center of campus, an easy walk.  On the main road, the snow had been pushed up to either side.  River hugged the snowbank until she reached the side street that led to the campus.  In driveways, people were brushing the white powder off their vehicles.

She was earlier than usual, so she purchased a pair of coffees at the student center and took them over to Klugman.  The Doctor had just arrived, unwinding an insanely long scarf from about his neck.

“Now there’s a conversation starter,” she laughed.

“I haven’t worn this old thing for ages,” he said, giving the knitted fabric a nostalgic pat.  He didn’t bother with a key, instead using the sonic screwdriver to unlock his office door.

“I got you a coffee,” she said, handing him the paper cup.  “No sugar, just milk.”

“Thank you,” he smiled.  With snow still dotting his coat and melting in his dark hair, he looked impossibly young, cheeks pink from the cold.

He flipped on the lights and circled around his desk.  “Have a banana?”  A few pieces of fruit sat in a dish on his desk.

River took one bite and asked, “Villengard?”

“Yes.”  He looked smug.

“There used to be an excellent munitions factory there,” Rivers said, sitting on the edge of his desk.  “They made the best sonic weapons anywhere.  Then their main reactor went critical, and the whole factory melted down.  I always worry if I eat enough of these things, I’ll start glowing in the dark.”

The Doctor just raised his eyebrows, the lower part of his face hidden behind his coffee cup.  He switched on his computer and helped himself to a banana.

A thick piece of creamy paper lying on his desk caught River’s eye, and she leaned over to pick it up, scanning the lines of elegant, scrolling text.

“A wedding invitation?” she asked, taking a sip of coffee.  “Why so flouncy?”

“Very formal,” he said.  “That’s what an Earth invitation looks like, at least in this culture at this time.”

“Where’s London?” she asked.

“Across the ocean, in Great Britain,” he said.  “A big island off the coast of the European continent.  Favorite place of mine.”

“So, you know these people?  The ones that’re getting married?”  She read the names on the invitation.  “Martha Hope Jones and Thomas Patrick Milligan?”

“Martha Jones is a good friend.”

River checked an envelope that lay nearby, finding it addressed to Dr. John Smith at Ethan Allen College.  “She knows you’re here, then?”

“I’ve asked her to see what she can learn about the Mouth of Quincunx.  She works for a military outfit called UNIT, and they have extensive records.  She told me she’s getting married on New Year’s Eve, and sent me an invitation.”  He set down his coffee cup, smiling.  “Care to join me?” he asked.

“You want me to be your date?” she teased.

“It’s customary, though not mandatory,” he grinned.  “I’d love to have you along.  A lot of people I know will be there—I think you’d like them.”

“How will you introduce me?”

“As Shira Nahar, another employee at the college.  Only Jack and Martha know what you’re doing here.”

“Who’s Jack?”

“Jack Harkness.  Runs Torchwood, an outfit that investigates alien activity on earth.  He’s doing some research, too, on the outside chance there’s a mention of the Mouth of Quincunx somewhere in some dusty old archive.”

“Can you trust them?”

“I do trust them, and have, with my life—literally.  A couple of years ago, Martha saved the entire planet, almost single-handedly.”

“You’re fond of her,” stated River.

“She has a first-rate mind,” the Doctor said, “nerves of steel, and the guts of a tiger.”

“Was she your lover?”

“No, more of a protégée.”  The Doctor looked pleased with himself.

“All right, I’ll go with you,” River said.  “Sounds like a fun, romantic night out.”

He said nothing, just kept smiling.  After a month, he still hadn’t made any sexual overtures, which River found astonishing, though he flirted with her almost constantly.  River didn’t flatter herself too much in that regard; she’d observed him around other people, observed his effortless charm, watched the effect he had on others.  Flirting seemed to be a kind of default mode for him, and there were very few who didn’t fall under his spell; the students especially were enthralled by him.

He became serious, then; River had also grown accustomed to his lightning-fast and capricious changes in mood.

“It was homicide,” he said.

“The fire?” she asked.  “Was arson involved?”

“Murder.  The women were all dead long before the fire started.  They’d been drinking mead, a drink fermented from honey.  The bottle had been laced with cyanide.”

River whistled.  “Why?” she said.  “Malice?  Insurance money?  Is there any motive?”

“The police are looking into it,” he said.  “The women were pagans, a fringe religion in this culture, and not regarded very kindly by some of the more mainstream faiths.  But from everything I’ve heard, that group had been well-established in town for nearly twenty years, and nobody had ever bothered them.  The bottle of mead had come from the food store that the coven leader owned.  Nothing else in that store had any poison in it.”

“So, someone deliberately poisoned that bottle,” River said.

“And once again, you have a religious group being targeted,” said the Doctor.  “But this time, it’s more than the destruction of property—it’s the loss of life.”  His eyes and voice grew angry as he spoke.

“What about their bodies?” asked River.  “Any cutting or mutilation, like there was with Professor Cavanaugh?  Or were the bodies burned too badly to tell?”

“I managed a look at the autopsy reports,” he said.  “There were no signs of damage to the bodies.”

“So, a different MO,” River said.  “You’ve had a single murder, two acts of vandalism, and an act of mass murder, all centered in the same geographic region.”  She asked, “Did Professor Cavanaugh have any religious affiliations?”

“She was a Quaker, according to Charlie,” the Doctor told her.  “It’s a religion that focuses more on the inward experience of the divine than outward displays.”  He rubbed his chin.  “But she wasn’t involved with any organized groups locally, and from looking through her belongings, I’d say her faith didn’t play a large role in her life, at least not in obvious ways.”  He leaned back in his seat, thinking over the situation.  “First and foremost, she identified herself as a scientist.”

“So, her death wouldn’t seem to fit with the deaths of these other women,” River said.

“Unless she was killed because of something she knew,” the Doctor said.  “There’s still that phone message she left for Charlie.  She had a sense that something was wrong around here.”  Leaning forward, he said, “Was there any indication that the Mouth of Quincunx was a holy relic?  That the early people of Jahoo considered it sacred in any way?”

“It’s too ambiguous,” River told him.  “It might’ve been a war god.  It might’ve been a god of the bakery.  It might’ve been strictly ornamental.  The ruins it was found in look like they were a fortress, but whether the figure had any connections with the people’s military or war culture is pure conjecture.  There’s not a lot of context to go by.  It was found buried under rubble, with no way of knowing if it’d been in a particular place of honor.”

“There is one thing to consider,” the Doctor said.  “When one religion supplants another, very often the old religion is demonized, and everything involved with it is defaced or destroyed, its followers often persecuted, or forced to convert on pain of death.”

Alarmed, River said, “And you think that might be happening here?  That there’s some crazy people out there, worshipping the Mouth of Quincunx like a god, and destroying anything connected with other belief systems?”

The Doctor finished his coffee.  “If it’s true, they’re being rather haphazard about it, wouldn’t you say?”

“Well, if any other sites of worship are destroyed and more people are murdered, we’ll certainly know then, won’t we?”

“I’d rather not wait for that to happen,” the Doctor scowled.

“So, we need to find out who’s behind all this,” River said.

“We keep looking.”

“We keep looking,” River agreed.  She flipped open her vortex manipulator and checked the time.  “Shit, I’m late for work.”  She hopped off his desk.  “Thanks for the banana.”

“What a lascivious remark,” he said, one corner of his mouth twisting up. 

“Do you enjoy sharing your bananas?” she taunted.

Now his left eyebrow went up, matching the rakish angle of his mouth.  “Thank you for the coffee.”

She blew him a kiss on her way out.  “Later, Pretty Boy.”

“Later,” he called as she departed.

(v)

“What about this one?”

Chelsea emerged from behind a rack, a brilliant red dress in her hands.  The dropped waist and general flapper vibe would have worked on a thinner woman, but not Chelsea.

“No way,” said Exa.  “Get something with a waistline, something that shows a little more cleavage.”  She had several dresses over her right arm and was rattling through the rails for more.

“You think this would work?” asked Cassie, holding up a teal green number in a shimmery fabric.

“Hmm, color’s okay, but I’d have to see it on you,” Exa pronounced.  “Ooh!”  She pulled a fetching black sheath off the rack.  “What about this?”

“Sweet!” Cassie grinned.  “Wait’ll Brendan sees you—he’ll flip.”

Exa didn’t answer for a moment, pretending to check the price on the tag.  “He’s not coming.”

Cassie stared.  “Ohmigod, did you break up?”

“No, no.  He has finals and stuff, plus he has to work…”

Cassie turned to find Chelsea with her face turned toward a rack of scarves and shawls.

“Chel, what about you?  Aren’t you going with Rob?”

“No, he’s really too busy.  That’s okay.  We’ll still have a great time.”  She didn’t turn around as she spoke.

Cassie’s head snapped back and forth.  “You guys,” she said, feeling her face grow hot, “if you’re doing this just for me…”

“Cass,” said Exa firmly, “this is our last year at college, our last semi-formal, who knows how much we’ll see each other after graduation… we can lose the boy toys for one night and just have fun together.”

Cassie didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or start throwing things.

“Look,” she said, “I know I’m the biggest loser on the planet when it comes to the romance department, but I don’t need you guys rubbing my face in it with some crazy… I dunno, act of charity, or something!  Invite your damn boyfriends if you want to!”

“Cass.” Chelsea put her arm around Cassie’s back.  “Just shut the hell up already, okay?  It’s a stupid girly dance, and the guys would feel like morons.  Just chill.  It’s okay.  We don’t mind going stag, honest.”

Cassie sighed, her shoulders slumping.  “Jesus,” she muttered.  At the predominantly female Ethan Allen, having a date for the winter semi-formal dance was like a badge of honor.  Both Chelsea and Exa had acquired boyfriends during their junior years, and Cassie had fully expected her friends would want bona-fide dates for their last dressy occasion of their college years.  Their willingness to forego that silly but oh-so-cherished status symbol told Cassie how much her friends valued her, that they’d go to such lengths to spare her feelings.  She found herself blinking back idiotic tears.

“Hey, hey, stop that shit,” Exa scolded.  “You want me bawling on the sequins, here?”

Cassie punched Exa’s shoulder, then wiped her face on her sleeve.  “You guys are the best,” she managed.

“Of course we are!” said Chelsea.  “Now, do we wanna try the swag, or what?”

They took their dresses into the changing rooms and spent a busy half-hour trying on one frothy concoction after another.  Exa decided on a simple figure-hugging dress in basic black with spaghetti straps and a plunging neckline. Chelsea took Exa’s advice and picked a dress in deep red that flattered her ample bust.  Cassie had no cleavage to speak of—she’d been a relentless B cup since her thirteenth birthday—but she nevertheless found a nice ruffle-free number in dusty pink taffeta.  With luck, she’d be able to wear it again, maybe during one of the graduation weekend events.

Alone in the cubicle with her own reflection, Cassie spent several unhappy moments staring into the mirror, allowing herself a rare indulgence in self-pity.  She wasn’t ugly—not remotely—but she was far from spectacular.  She was the very distillation of her parents’ DNA: the serious, scholarly Jews on her father’s side and the sport-loving WASPs on her mother’s side.  As a result, Cassie was small, her figure boyish, her features good but unremarkable.  Her hair was thick but very, very fine, resisting all attempts at curling.  Cassie had grown it long, almost to her waist, but she mostly kept it braided.  As a child, she’d had a delicate, elfin look, but that hardly suited a grown woman.  Her eyes were brown and ordinary, her skin clear, her chin pointed, but she lacked the things that made men swoon: big hair, big boobs, big lips.

All her life, Cassie had tried to resist the notion that her worth was in any way tied up in her looks, defining herself by her academic and athletic achievements.  But she was now twenty-two, and no male had ever given her more than a passing glance, their eyes always wandering to girls who were hot, sexy, interesting—girls like Chelsea and Exa.  Cassie tried to tell herself again and again that she still had time, that there would be veterinary training and work experiences, all of which would give her a chance to find a compatible mate.  But at the back of her mind, she harbored a sense of deep despair, wondering if old age would find her alone, unmarried, childless, having never experienced the dizzying wonder that everyone called love.

_Stop it_ , she scolded herself.  _It could be a lot worse.  As Gigi likes to say, you could’ve come out looking like a pig_.

“Right,” said Exa when they’d finished.  “Accessories, anyone?”

They trooped out of the changing rooms, dresses over their arms, making a beeline for the jewelry counter.  The aisle took them right through formal dresses, and Exa very nearly collided with Shira Nahar.

“Hello!” the tech smiled.  “Shopping?”

“Yeah, there’s a semi-formal dance when classes are over,” Cassie told her.  “What about you?”

“I’m going to a wedding.”  To Cassie’s surprise, Shira seemed anxious.  “I have no idea what to wear.”

“How formal is it?” asked Chelsea.

“Well, the invitation was printed in swirly typeface on thick paper.”

The three girls burst out laughing, and Cassie wondered if Shira didn’t know anything about American—western—wedding customs.

“What time of day?” asked Chelsea.

“Morning.  Eleven o’clock.  Some place called Southwark Cathedral, in London.”

“Ooh!  That’s formal,” said Chelsea.  “You’ll want a full-length dress for that.”  She held up her own dress.  “See, ours are for a semi-formal—short skirts.”

Shira said, “As you might’ve guessed, I never wear dresses.”

Exa poked through the racks.  “How about this one?”

Shira studied the dress, a slim sheath of midnight blue, shimmering with subtle silver accents.

“Not bad.”

“What size are you?” asked Exa.

“No clue,” Shira said, her expression blank.

“Here, try a six,” Exa suggested.  Shira was about five-eight, but slim as a wand.

“Wait and tell me if it’s all right,” the tech implored.

“Sure,” laughed Exa.

Shira vanished into the changing room.

“Feels like the mice dressing Cinderella,” Chelsea cracked.

“Or Frenchy and Rizzo helping Olivia Newton-John sex it up,” Exa laughed.

A moment later, Shira emerged from the changing rooms, now wearing the blue dress.  “Well?  Does it pass muster?”

“Sweet!”  Exa gave the dress a thumbs-up.  “Turn around.”

Cassie and Chelsea whistled.  “It’s perfect.”  Cassie envied how good Shira looked even in the most ordinary garments—it was her confidence, Cassie realized, that deep-seated self-assurance, that gave her such a sense of panache.  With the matter settled, Shira vanished again, emerging after a few moments in her street clothes.

“What do you wear under these things?” she asked, sounding self-conscious.

“You need a halter bra,” Exa told her.  “C’mon, lingerie’s over here.”

Shira was an even more hopeless tomboy than Cassie: she had no clue about bras, hose, shoes, or jewelry.  The three girls helped her select everything for the big night—New Year’s Eve, it turned out—Shira gushing with gratitude at each turn.

“Thanks so much,” she said as they headed toward the nearest register.  “I was lost—I’ve never even been in an American shopping mall.”

“Wow, culture shock,” Cassie laughed.

“I’m serious.  If I get through this wedding without making an idiot of myself, it’ll be all because of you three.”  Shira paid for everything—a purchase of nearly four hundred dollars—with cash, peeling off fifty-dollar bills and setting them down in a neat pile.  Cassie paid for her dress with her credit card, which she tried to use only for travel reservations and the occasional indulgence, like this.

“Another messy sacrifice to the Goddess Visa,” Exa joked, pulling out the plastic.  “Why don’t they accept live chickens any more?”

Watching the salesgirl swath the dresses in plastic, Cassie asked Shira, “So, who’s getting married?  Someone in your family?”

“No, a friend of John Smith’s.  He invited me to go with him.”

“John Smith, the biology professor?”

“Is there more than one of him?” Shira laughed.

“He’s my advisor,” Cassie told her.  “He’s supervising my thesis.”

“Well, you’re learning from the best, in that case.”  Shira slung the plastic-sheathed dress over one arm and accepted a shopping bag with the rest of her purchases from the salesgirl.  “Have fun at your dance,” she said.  “Now, let’s see if I can get on the right bus and not end up at the North Pole.”

The three girls took their bags and dresses.  Cassie stared off into nothingness, feeling once again that horrible sense of inadequacy, of loneliness, of unfulfillment.  She tried to tell herself that Dr. Smith was too old, that romancing students went against college rules, that he was much more apt to find Shira Nahar—an accomplished professional woman in her early thirties—far more interesting than a wet-behind-her-ears undergraduate.  But still, she’d hoped…  She shook her head.  She hadn’t realized until just now the extent of her crush on Dr. Smith.  And it _hurt_.  It felt like everything inside her ribcage was being devoured by a monstrously hungry rodent.  She tried not to think about how Dr. Smith would react when he saw Shira wearing that blue dress, tried not to dwell on the two of them spending a romantic New Year’s together in London, and she thought she’d lose her mind if she couldn’t think of something else.

She felt Exa’s arm around her shoulders.  “Hey.  Wanna get going?”

On the other side, Chelsea offered, “Chocolate?  Or ice cream?  Bailey’s Irish Cream?  Maybe Bailey’s with chocolate ice cream floating on top?”

Cassie pulled her friends closer.  “You guys are the best,” she said.

“C’mon,” said Exa, tugging her along.  “You need Godiva’s.  Stat.  And don’t worry about the money.  We’re buying.”

**To be continued…**


	6. Angels of the Silences--Chapter Five

Chapter 5

_Colorblind_

River paced the living room, fighting the urge to check her reflection in the mirror one more time.  She knew she looked good, even if every inch of her felt itchy and uncomfortable, encased in unfamiliar fabrics.  The under-band of the bra dug into her ribs, the gown’s narrow skirt restricted movement, and the gartered stockings felt like sausage casings on her legs.  Still, she had to admit, the overall effect was spectacular.

_Let’s just hope I don’t have to run for my life at any point_ , she thought.

She’d walked into town earlier that day to visit a beauty shop, where she’d splashed out an absurd amount of the local currency to have her hair styled and pinned up, fingernails manicured, and cosmetics applied, splurging also for a taxi ride back to the chalet.  Apart from protective lip balm, River never painted her face, too impractical in her line of work.  At the moment, she felt like she had a layer of wax on her skin.

At least her shoes were comfortable.  River had tried several styles before settling on a pair of low-healed dressy shoes—“pumps,” the American girls called them—dark blue, the toes round rather than pointed.  As an extra measure against disaster, she’d applied self-adhesive non-slip pads to the bottoms, not liking the shoes’ tendency to slide on smooth surfaces.

She surveyed the chalet for the hundredth time: she’d spent the previous day cleaning and rearranging things.  Now every surface gleamed, a stack of firewood sat in the fireplace, waiting to be lit, the curtains were drawn, dozens of candles lay about the room in holders.  River spent so much of her life working on archeological digs, traveling from one rough encampment to another, that she reveled in luxury when opportunity permitted.  She hadn’t had the time to stage a proper seduction for years.

In the fridge, she’d stocked sensual foods: cheese, eggs, fresh fruit, a whole roasted chicken.  There were bottles of a good wine chilling as well.  She’d bought three loaves of bread from a local baker and chocolates from a gourmet candy-maker.  River didn’t know about the Doctor, but sex always made her ravenously hungry.

She fretted about her perfume, sniffing her inner arm.  Was it too strong?  Too spicy?  Or not strong enough?  Would the Doctor be put off?  A sonic whine broke into her anxiety, followed by a loud groaning and thumping.  The blue box materialized in the center of the living room.  A moment later, the door opened, and the Doctor popped out.

They spent a few moments staring at each other, agog.  The Doctor had swapped his usual blues and browns for a formal suit in black.  The dark color and trim cut emphasized his narrow frame and made him appear taller than ever.  His hair looked like it had been professionally styled, brown strands flirting with the air.  His skin was shaved smooth, his eyebrows and sideburns trimmed.  When River looked down and realized he was wearing black athletic shoes, she started laughing.

“What?” he said, sounding insulted.  “You never know when you might need to move in a hurry.”

She rustled over, planting a gentle kiss on one cheek: she didn’t want to smudge her lipstick or leave deep red lip-prints all over his face.  River felt a sense of relief that he appeared as nervous as her.

“Lovely,” he said, glancing her up and down.  “Wonderful.”  Shy as a boy on a first date, he kissed her forehead.  “Ready for a trip in the TARDIS, Professor?”

She took his hand.  “Awaiting takeoff, Captain.”

They went inside the ship, and he closed the door.  “Hold on to something,” he cautioned before going to one of the control panels and throwing a lever.

(ii)

The journey came to a halt almost as quickly as it had begun, disappointing River, who’d expected something more drawn-out and dramatic.  When the door opened, she felt a rush of chilly air and shivered.

“Bit nippy,” she assessed, stepping outside.

“London in December,” he nodded, pulling the ship’s door closed.  “But there’s the church, right there.  Southwark Cathedral.  I defeated a giant scorpion in there, once.”

“You’re full of it,” she teased him.

“No, I’m serious.  I was wearing this suit, too.  Well, black tie, then.  White tie tonight—this is more formal.”  He patted the bow-shaped ribbon at his neck.  “I’m hoping the change of tie will be a lucky charm—it’s always a disaster when I wear this suit.”

“I’m sure you must run into disasters getting out of bed in the morning,” River told him.  He took her arm, and they crossed the street together, joining the crowds heading for the church.  Automotive vehicles were pulling up to the curb, disgorging passengers and then driving away.  The guests were well-dressed, and even with her limited knowledge of Earth cultures, River could sense the affluence of these people.  Everyone seemed to have an air of privilege about them, a sense of self-importance at having been invited to this event.

Inside the church, a handsome, dark-skinned young man in a formal black suit greeted them.

“Hey, Boss!” he said.  “I was wonderin’ when you’d turn up.”

“Mickey!” the Doctor exclaimed.  “Oh, I wouldn’t have missed Martha’s wedding for the world.  Mickey, might I introduce Professor Shira Nahar?  Shira, this is Mickey Smith, an old friend of mine.”

River shook the young man’s hand, and he assessed her with a quick eye.  “Found yourself a new bird already, eh Boss?”

“Excuse me, I am nobody’s bird,” River told him.

He grinned.  “Mouthy and clever, just the way you like ‘em.”  River sensed some on-going affectionate rivalry between the two men.

“Are you with the wedding party?” asked the Doctor.

“Nah, I’m just waitin’ for Captain Beefcake to get back—he’s lookin’ for a place to park.  Team Torchwood’s inside, if you wanna sit with us.”  He waved to another good-looking young man, this one taller, wearing a glittery waistcoat beneath his black formal jacket.  “Oi!  Leo!  Over here!”

The youth strode over, grinning when he saw the Doctor.  “You again?  Mum and Dad had a wager whether you’d show up or not.”  He shook the Doctor’s hand.

“Good to see you again, Leo,” the Doctor said.  “Leo, this is Professor Shira Nahar.  Shira, this is Leo Jones, Martha’s brother.”

“Hello, nice to meet you,” River said.

“Another one?” Leo grinned.  “You move fast, Doctor, I’ll give you that.  Come on inside—you wanna sit with Torchwood, right?”

“Might as well; I wouldn’t want to miss out on all this ribbing,” the Doctor said.

They followed Leo into the vast inner sanctum of the cathedral.  River peered around, wishing she had more time to explore: her scholar’s eyes took in the architecture, the adornments, the beautifully colored windows.  The building felt old and had a wonderfully musty scent; even with all the excited clamor and gossip, it had the hushed atmosphere of any holy site.

Leo took the pair to a section near the front, on the left, and handed them folded pieces of paper, similar in texture to the wedding invitations.  River didn’t have time to ask the Doctor what these were: he was greeting the people in the wooden seat.

“Ooh, I finally get to meet you in person!” a young woman exclaimed, leaping up to shake the Doctor’s hand.  She gave him a fast kiss to one cheek.  Addressing the man beside her, she said, “Rhys, this is the Doctor—you know, the one who helped us out last June.  Doctor, this is Rhys Williams, my husband.”

A solid-looking man about River’s age got to his feet, extending a hand to the Doctor.  “Good to meet you at last, after hearing so much about you,” he said.  “I gather we have a lot to thank you for.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” the Doctor said, honestly abashed.

“It’s more than nothing,” interjected another man, good-looking, but almost too baby-faced for River’s tastes.  He, too, offered the Doctor a hand.  “My sincere thanks,” he said.  “Jack told us everything you did.”

The Doctor was turning redder by the moment.  He put a hand on River’s arm and said, “Gwen, Rhys, Ianto, this is Professor Shira Nahar.  Shira, may I introduce Gwen Cooper, her husband Rhys Williams, and Ianto Jones?  Gwen and Ianto work with Jack in Torchwood.”

The trio greeted River with smiles and handshakes, but there were too many knowing looks darting among their eyes for River’s tastes.

“It’s so nice to meet you all,” she said.

They sat down, making themselves as comfortable as could be managed on the unyielding wooden benches.  Guests continued to filter in, escorted by handsome young men in black suits.  River glanced down at the paper in her hands.

“What’s this?” she murmured.

“It’s called a program or a bulletin,” the Doctor responded.  “It tells you who’s in the wedding party, the order of the ceremony, the music they’re using.”  Twisting around in his seat, he said, “They have a fantastic pipe organ here.  Wait’ll you hear it play.”

River looked over the program, reading the list of participants and family members.  There were bridesmaids and groomsmen, a ring bearer and flower girl, a maid of honor and best man.  The names of the parents and grandparents were also included.  Maybe all the members of both clans had to be present in order to make the union valid.  River didn’t recognize any of the musical pieces that would be played, though some of Earth’s music would survive well into the 51st century.  The ceremony looked long and detailed; River wished she had more time to ask the Doctor about the significance of each piece of ritual.

“Is this a Christian temple?” she whispered.

“Church,” he murmured in her ear.  “It’s called a church.  It’s Anglican—a subgroup of Christianity.”

“It’s very different from temples where I come from,” she said.

“People from Earth brought their religions with them when they colonized other planets,” he said, keeping his voice low.  “But of course those faiths evolved over time, adapted to their new environments.”

Behind them, a man’s loud voice boomed, “Whispering in church, Doctor?  Shame on you!”

The Doctor grinned, turning and standing to greet a man of about forty.  He was tall, strongly built, very handsome, but too aware of his looks for River’s tastes.

“Oh, look, the court jester’s arrived.”  The two men embraced with a lot of feeling.  The newcomer regarded the Doctor with mingled love and concern, an almost fatherly affection.  The vivid blue eyes then turned to River, and a wide grin stretched across his face.

“Well, _hello_ there,” he said, disentangling himself from the Doctor’s arms.  “Have we met?”

“Oh, _stop_ ,” the Doctor scolded.

Amused by such outrageous smarminess, River offered hand.  “Professor Shira Nahar,” she said, giving him her best smile and fluttering her lashes.

“Captain Jack Harkness,” the man grinned.  “Pleased to meet you, Professor.”  He glanced at the Doctor.  “Now I understand why you got roped into a day job.”

“Nonsense,” the Doctor huffed.  “I’m deep undercover at an esteemed American institution of higher learning.  Professor Nahar is one of my colleagues.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Jack laughed.  He told River, “This guy’s usually a moving target.”

“I’m beginning to get that feeling,” River said dryly.

“I’m doing a favor for an old friend,” the Doctor insisted.  “And inspiring young minds while I’m at it.”

“I’ll bet you are,” Jack snickered.

“You and your dirty mind,” the Doctor complained.

“Are you in the party?” asked River, pointing to Jack’s glittery waistcoat.

“Yeah, Martha asked me,” Jack said, beaming with pride.  “Speaking of which, I need to get down there.”  He nodded toward the front of the sanctum, where some young men had begun to gather.  “The girls are on their way.”

After he left, River turned over the program, scanning the lines of poetry written on the back.  “Who’s this William Shakespeare?”

“Probably the single greatest writer in Earth’s history,” the Doctor told her.  “That’s one of his ‘Dark Lady’ sonnets.”  Leaning closer to her ear, he whispered, “I took Martha on a little trip back to meet him.  She’s the one who inspired the poems.”

“She must be a remarkable woman, then.  This is pretty steamy.”

With a quiet laugh, the Doctor said, “An unrequited passion.  She wouldn’t kiss him because his breath was so bad.  He lived a few centuries before the advent of oral hygiene.”

The rows of wooden seats were filling up.  Mickey appeared, wiggling over to sit between Gwen and Ianto; from their conversation, River surmised that they worked together.  Down near the front, Jack stood with the other groomsmen, all looking nervous and self-conscious in their formal suits.  One of the fellows was very tall, athletic and handsome, dark of hair and eye.  The back of his suit jacket ended in two long, extravagant tails.  River suspected this must be the bridegroom, judging by his anxious expression.

The murmur of voices rose a bit, and River turned to see an elderly man in some kind of military uniform striding down the aisle.  When she got a closer look at his face, she realized he must be at least eighty, but the years had done nothing to diminish his vigor.  On his arm was a woman of about sixty, slim and lovely, chestnut hair swept up, her gown a deep burgundy.

The Doctor had turned and noticed them also, and he froze, mouth slightly agape.

“Well, what’s your complaint, young man?” the old soldier barked.  “Are you trying to catch flies?”

“Brigadier!” the Doctor exclaimed.  “Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart!”

The old soldier drew up short, staring for an instant.  “Good Lord!” he almost shouted.  “It’s you, isn’t it?  And that’s Sir Alistair, to you.”

The Doctor sprang out of the wooden seat and gave the old soldier’s hand an enthusiastic shake.  “Sir Alistair, then!  Colonel Mace told me about your knighthood.  Congratulations!  And Sarah Jane!”

The woman laughed, embracing the Doctor.  “Sir Alistair’s with me, Doctor,” she said.  “He’s my plus-one.”

The old soldier looked the Doctor up and down.  “It’s not bloody fair,” he stated.  “Sarah Jane, why didn’t you warn me he’s regressed to infancy?”

“Oi!” the Doctor protested.  “Infancy?”

“And ruin the surprise?” Sarah Jane teased.  “Not for anything.  When I first saw him like this, you could’ve knocked me down with a feather.”

The pair took their seats in the wooden bench behind the Torchwood group.  “Have you met Dr. Jones?”  The Doctor asked the Brigadier.

“Not yet, though if the stories I’ve heard about her are true, the future of UNIT is in good hands.”

Sarah Jane interjected, “Martha invited me, and I asked the Brigadier to come along.  For old times’ sake.”

“And I see you’re training the next generation,” the Brigadier said, nodding at River.  “A new recruit?”

“Not a recruit,” the Doctor said.  “Professor Shira Nahar.  Shira, this is Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart.”  He lowered his voice, “Sir Alistair is probably my oldest living friend on Earth.”

“Now, there’s an honor I could live without,” the Brigadier said.  His keen, intelligent eyes assessed River, not missing a detail.  At one time his hair must have been dark, like his eyes, though time had turned it white as snow.  Above a stern mouth, a salt-and-pepper mustache bristled.  For all his brisk military demeanor, River sensed a good deal of intelligence and compassion to him.

“And this is Sarah Jane Smith, a journalist and another old friend,” the Doctor went on.

“I resent the ‘old,’” Sarah Jane laughed.

“Sarah Jane, Sir Alistair, this is Professor Shira Nahar, one of my colleagues.”

“Pleased to meet you both,” River said, shaking hands.

“So, not retired yet, Sir Alistair?” the Doctor asked.

“No chance of it,” the Brigadier responded.  “I’ve tried that, but I’ll be in harness ‘till my dying day.  Can’t you keep those blasted Sontarans away from Earth, Doctor?”

“I do my best,” the Doctor grinned.

“And the Daleks, moving our planet—do you know what a wretched nuisance that was?”

“I have a fair idea, yes.”  The Doctor sounded miffed.

“You should’ve tried being on their ship,” Sarah Jane told the Brigadier.  “That was good for a few gray hairs.”

“So, Professor Nahar, what corner of the galaxy has the Doctor dragged you off to?” Sir Alistair asked.

“None, yet,” she smiled.  “I haven’t even seen much of Earth.”

“Ooh, a visitor from afar!” Sarah Jane breathed, keeping her voice down.  “Tell me, where are you from?”

“Shh!”  The Doctor craned his neck.  “The women are here.”  Two of the groomsmen were unrolling a long sheet of paper down the central aisle.

“We’ll talk later,” Sarah Jane promised River.  “Martha told me we’re all sitting at the same table at the reception.”

River had been aware of quiet music playing; now the volume increased.  That seemed a signal to the late-arriving guests, who took seats and quieted down.  At the front of the sanctum, an ample woman in clerical robes had appeared—according to the program, her name was Reverend Geraldine Granger.  She spoke to the assembled groomsmen, and then, at her signal, a well-dressed middle-aged couple came down the aisle at a measured pace, taking seats in the front row.

“Those are Tom’s parents,” River heard Mickey whisper.

A few moments later, Leo escorted an aristocratic-looking woman down the aisle to the front.  She wore a gown of glittery gold and left a whiff of exotic perfume in her wake.

“Martha’s mum,” the Doctor whispered to River.  “ _Don’t_ get her cross at you.”

“You two have a history?” River murmured.

“Do we ever.”

The procession continued: two adorable children in miniature versions of the adults’ garb, and next, a parade of young women in jewel-toned shimmering gowns.  When the last one passed by, the Doctor whispered, “That’s Tish, Martha’s sister.”

The music rose to a crescendo, and as if prodded by some signal, the guests took to their feet.  In a balcony somewhere, a horn sounded.  River glanced at her program: the piece was called “Trumpet Voluntary,” suitably heraldic.

Down the aisle came a tall, bald man of middle years, beaming a smile that could be felt in every corner of the sanctum.  On his arm walked a stunning young woman wearing a white gown, fitted in the bodice and full in the skirt.  A long veil semi-concealed her face, but did nothing to contain her expression of pure joy.  In her hands she carried a magnificent bouquet of white and crimson flowers.  Everyone murmured as she passed by, the long train of her dress rustling on the white paper.  River glanced at the Doctor: he was smiling, but his eyes were wet.

The pair reached the front of the sanctum.  The tall man shook hands with the bridegroom and kissed the top of his daughter’s head before taking a seat.  The young couple clasped hands, gazing at each other with eyes full of love.  River could feel the strength of the emotion from where she sat.  Then the pair turned to face the front.

“Dearly beloved,” the clergywoman began in a deep, resonant voice.  “We have come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining together of this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony…”

River could feel the attention of the people around her drifting into a trance-like state, perhaps not surprising, considering the number of times most of them must have heard this litany.

“Into this holy union Martha Hope Jones and Thomas Patrick Milligan now come to be joined. If any of you can show just cause why they may not lawfully be married, speak now; or else forever hold your peace…”

(ii)

The ceremony was very long.  River sat twitching with curiosity, making a mental list of questions she wanted to ask the Doctor when it ended.  There were readings and music, a lengthy exchange of vows, an exchange of rings, more music, and then something called Holy Communion.

“We stay here,” the Doctor murmured, as everyone around them joined the queue heading for the front of the sanctum.  “This part is for members only.”

“What’s the significance of it?” River whispered when they were alone on the bench.

“Bread and wine,” the Doctor whispered back.  “It’s symbolic of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, the central figure in all this.”

“Why, what’d he do?”

“They think he’s the son of God.”

“Really?  A demi-God, then?”

“Erm, no, not quite.  He supposed to be a conveyor of forgiveness and eternal paradise in the afterlife.”

“Oh,” River had studied many religions in her line of work, and this didn’t sound any more or less bizarre than the others.  “And what’s behind the theology?”

“I’ll tell you later,” the Doctor murmured.  “But I actually met the chap, and he was nothing the way the legends make him out to be.”  People were returning to their seats, and the Doctor shifted his long legs to let them pass.

Another piece of music followed, and the ceremony ended with a benediction.  River bowed her head to be polite and listened to the clergywoman’s beautiful voice, playing with the clasp on her beaded handbag.  She stole a quick glance at the Doctor, who sat with his eyes closed but head unbowed, and she wondered what, if any, gods the Time Lords had revered.  Probably none: most religions had their basis in myths that people created to explain phenomena they didn’t understand, and where the Time Lords had unlocked the secrets of time and space, they might have felt no need to pay homage to unseen entities.  Still, she wondered what the Doctor must be thinking right now.

At last the ceremony ended.  The newly married couple led the procession out of the cathedral, beaming wide smiles of happiness, their attendants following behind them.  Lights flashed as guests took photos.  Then a jabber of laughter and voices rose as the guests, released from the solemnity of the ceremony, got to their feet and began heading for the exits.

“What next?” River asked the Doctor.

He looked like he’d just come back from a visit to some far-off place.  River squeezed his arm.  “All right?” she asked.

“Hmm?” he responded, blinking, then an instant later he was animated with his habitual _joie de vie_.

“Reception!” he said.  “Sarah Jane, Sir Alistair, do you need a lift?”

“No, thanks, Doctor; the Brigadier hired a classic Bentley for tonight,” Sarah Jane told him.

Sir Alistair added, “And we’d rather not take a detour to Timbuktu, if you please.”

“He’s the same as ever,” the Doctor sniffed, unlocking the door to the TARDIS.  He told River, “No sense of adventure, that one.”

(iii)

The TARDIS took them to a hotel nearby without any unplanned side-trips, materializing in a small alley beside the building.  The Doctor locked up the ship and they walked around the corner and in through the front door.

“Posh,” River assessed, taking in the marble and wood and gilt fixtures.

“Martha says her parents are status-obsessed,” the Doctor revealed.  “This is mostly for show, to impress people.”  He waved at someone across the lobby.  “There’s Tish.”

A pretty young woman in a deep purple gown hurried over to them, throwing perfumed arms around the Doctor.

“You made it!” she laughed.  “Now, please tell me there won’t be any disasters today.”

“No guarantees,” the Doctor responded.  “But I’m here, and Torchwood and UNIT are well-represented.  I think we can deal with any party-crashers.  You look lovely, Tish—how are you?”

“Wonderful,” she said, gesturing a young man to her side.  He had jet-black hair and almond-shaped eyes, about River’s height, slim and good-looking.  “This is my fiancé, Daniel Takahashi.”  Tish waved a diamond ring in the Doctor’s face.

“You’re engaged?” the Doctor asked, shaking the young man’s hand, plainly delighted.

“About a week, now,” Daniel grinned.  “I gave her the ring at Christmas—I wasn’t gonna let her get away.”

“You’re American?” the Doctor asked.

“British mum, Japanese-American dad, uni in Canada—I’m a one-man multinational conglomerate.”

“I recruited him,” Tish beamed.  “On my new job.  He’s in finance, I’m in HR.”

“Good for you—congratulations,” the Doctor said.  “Tish, Daniel, this is Professor Shira Nahar.  Shira, Martha’s sister, Tish.”

“Otherwise known as Leticia Faith Jones,” Tish laughed.  “I’m the maid of honor—next year, it’ll be Martha’s turn.”  She gave the Doctor a nudge.  “There’s Mum and Dad.”

With a panicky expression, the Doctor asked River, “Is my tie on straight?  Is there anything on my face?”

“No, you’re good,” she murmured.

The older pair approached, the man laughing and reaching to clasp the Doctor’s arm.

“Glad you could make it!” he said.

“Hello, Doctor,” the woman said, her voice a touch on the frosty side.  River saw that she’d plucked her eyebrows into two tight, high arches, giving her an expression of perpetual disapproval, although her smile couldn’t have been any more genuine.

“Hullo, Francine!” the Doctor said, gently shaking her hand.  “So good to see you again.”

“Yes, on a happy occasion this time!” the man said, putting one arm around his wife and the other around his daughter.  “For once, we get to see you when there’s not an apocalypse in progress.  Did Tish tell you the happy news?”

“Yes, she did; congratulations.”

“Two down, one to go,” the man joked.  “Leo got married last year—about time, too, the scamp.”

Francine was regarding River with some curiosity, so the Doctor said, “Francine and Leo, might I introduce Professor Shira Nahar, one of my colleagues?  Shira, these are Clive and Francine Jones, Martha’s parents.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet both of you,” River said, giving each of them a warm smile.  “You must be so proud—your daughters are both so beautiful.”

Clive’s smile widened.  “I only create beautiful children,” he bragged.  “And there she is—the belle of the ball.”

People in the lobby stopped what they were doing to applaud as the bride and groom swept in.  Martha caught sight of the Doctor and let out a loud shriek of happiness, sprinting across the foyer.  River was impressed at how fast she moved in the long skirt and heels.  The Doctor laughed, catching Martha in his arms and sweeping her around.

“Oh, my God, you’re here!” she shouted.

“Dr. Jones!” he responded.  “Or is it Mrs. Milligan now?”

“Still Dr. Jones, professionally,” the young woman said when the Doctor set her down.  She gestured to her new husband.  “Doctor, this is Tom Milligan—my husband.”  She barked a loud, infectious laugh.  “Still feels weird to say that.  Tom, this is the Doctor.”

“It’s nice to meet you at last,” Milligan said.  Up close, he was even more handsome, rugged and masculine, eyes very intelligent.  “Martha says you’re responsible for the two of us meeting, but I’ve had to take her word for it.” 

“Long story,” the Doctor breezed.  “Tom and Martha, may I introduce Professor Shira Nahar?  Shira, this is Martha Jones and her new husband, Tom.”

Was it River’s imagination, or had a flash of some emotion—jealousy, wistfulness?—just passed through Martha’s eyes?

“Are you traveling with the Doctor?” she asked.

“Not yet,” River smiled.  “Congratulations on your wedding—you look so wonderful, and the ceremony was perfect.”

The young woman smiled, slipping an arm through her husband’s.  Minus the long veil, she was even more dazzlingly pretty than River had realized, the white of her gown contrasting with the rich brown of her skin.  No wonder Shakespeare had written sonnets about her.  For all her beauty, though, there was something intelligent and shrewd about this girl, something determined and fearless.  Tish, equally as attractive, made less of an impression because she lacked that inner core of pure steel.

A middle-aged woman was calling to the Jones family.

“That’s our wedding planner,” said Martha.  “The photographer’s waiting.”  She told River and the Doctor, “Go on inside, have some champagne and hors d’oeuvres.  It’ll be at least an hour ‘till we eat.”  Squeezing the Doctor’s arm, she said, “I have some news for you.  See if you can catch me after dinner.”

“All right,” he said, and the family vanished into a nearby lift.

(iv)

“Hors d’oeuvres” turned out to be small finger foods, savory and delicious, served by an army of roving waitstaff.  In the center of the ballroom stood an ingenious device, a fountain through which champagne flowed, an extravagant luxury.  Guests were stopping to fill glasses with the pale, bubbly liquid.  The Doctor snagged two glasses, one for River, one for himself.  The room was set up with numerous round tables and one long table at the front, draped in white linens and glittering with crystal, though half the floor had been left empty.

“For dancing,” the Doctor explained. 

“Where’s that music coming from?” River asked.

The Doctor took her to one corner, where three musicians played stringed instruments.  “Violin, cello, bass,” he said, pointing them out in turn, River enchanted by the sounds they produced, how beautifully the music from each individual instrument blended with the others.

“I could listen to that all day,” River said, reluctantly moving away.

“There’s where the band’ll play, later,” the Doctor said, pointing to a raised platform.  “Right up until midnight.  Clive and Francine aren’t sparing any expenses.”

“Why doesn’t Francine like you?”

“Because I took Martha from her.”  The Doctor put his hands in his pockets, walking along slowly, his expression contemplative.  “I changed her forever, and I don’t think Francine will ever forgive me for that.”

“Martha seems like a tough customer, though,” River said.  “Did she travel with you?”

“She did more than that—traveled with me, protected me, saved my life when I was too weak to act.  I recommended her for the job with UNIT.  Everything she went through made her stronger, but her family suffered a lot because of me.”

River made a sympathetic noise.  “Clive likes you.”

“Clive has less to feel responsible for,” the Doctor said, a cryptic remark that River knew he had no wish to explain further.

Instead, she asked, “What does Martha do with UNIT?”

“Scientific advisor,” the Doctor said, brightening.  “My old job, back in the day.”

“Really?” asked River.

“Early 1970s,” he told her.  “For about three years.”

“So Ethan Allen isn’t your first stint of regular employment?” River teased.

“No,” he laughed, “but Ethan Allen is my choice.  Back then, it was punishment.”

“By who?” she asked.

“The other Time Lords,” he revealed.

“Why, what’d you do?” she asked, sliding a hand under his jacket.

“Nicked a TARDIS and took off without permission.”

“Naughty boy,” she said, caressing the small of his back.  “But they let you go?”

“Only after I did them a big favor.  Look, there’s Sarah Jane and the Brigadier.  That’s how I met both of them, working for UNIT.  The Brigadier was commander of the British contingent—no idea what he’s up to now—something about Peru, last I heard.”

Sarah Jane was waving them over.  “Look, here’s our table,” she called.

River stared down at the preponderance of dishes and utensils at each place setting.

“What’re all these for?” she murmured, trying not to panic.

“I’ll show you,” the Doctor said in her ear.  “Just do what I do.  You start with the utensils on the outside and work your way in with each course.”  He lifted a small card and showed it to her.  “Here’s the menu.”

“Seven courses?” she asked.

“It’s very formal,” Sarah Jane interjected.  She slid an arm through River’s.  “I need to powder my nose—won’t you come with me?”

The Doctor gave her a little nod, and River said, “All right.”

“Meet us back here,” the Doctor said.  “I need to talk to Sir Alistair about our little project.”

(v)

“Powdering her nose” was Sarah Jane’s polite euphemism for going to the toilet.

“Look at this!” the journalist exclaimed, spinning around on the tiled floor.  “It’s like the Taj Majal!”  She vanished into one of the cubicles.

River used the opportunity to relieve herself, amused that the hotel’s luxury extended to its bathroom facilities.  The toilets were discreetly sectioned off in a separate room from the sinks, and there was also a lounge with easy chairs and elegant little tables.

After Sarah Jane washed her hands, she applied a fresh coat of lipstick.  River did the same, startled at the way her skin looked in the mirror.

“I haven’t had _that_ much champagne,” she said out loud.  “Why am I so pink?”

Sarah Jane pointed up at the recessed lights.  “Flatters the skin.  Makes you look five years younger.  Not that I’m complaining, mind.”

River laughed, returning the lipstick to her handbag and checking to see that her jewelry was on straight and that the complicated hardware beneath her gown was holding up.

“How long’ve you known the Doctor?” Sarah Jane asked.

“About three months,” River told her.

“And you haven’t traveled with him?”

“No, we’re both working incognito at the same college.  The trip to this wedding was my first spin in the TARDIS.”

“Has he asked you to go traveling with him, yet?”

“Not as such,” River said.  “When I finish this assignment, I’m planning to go back home.”

“If you get the chance, do it,” Sarah Jane advised.  “It’ll change your life forever.”

“You traveled with him?”

“For a couple of years, in my early twenties.”  Sarah Jane inspected the back of her gown in a nearby full-length mirror.  “Jack and Mickey and Martha have all traveled with him as well.”  She gave River a shrewd look up and down.  “Though if I’m guessing right, you’re already your own woman.  It’ll be different for you—you might be better off than the rest of us.”

“What do you mean?” asked River.

“If you spend any amount of time with the Doctor, he owns a piece of you forever.  Your life is never the same again.  It’s so hard to explain, especially for those of us on Earth who don’t have the ability to travel through time and space on our own.  You travel with him, and then boom, one day when you least expect it, it’s over, and you’re back to an ordinary, everyday life of work and family and cups of tea and delays in traffic…”  Sarah Jane had grown pensive.  “And no matter how rich your life is, it pales next to those crazy times you had rattling around in that blue box.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” River said.

“I can’t warn you not to fall in love with him,” Sarah Jane smiled.  “Everyone does, at least a little bit.  Well, maybe not Mickey, but the Doctor did nick Mickey’s girlfriend.”

River flushed, thinking of her cozy chalet, the food and wine and comfortable pillows she’d readied.  While she didn’t think the Doctor was any kind of romantic non-starter, neither had his reticence suggested that River was the latest in a line of conquests.  Now she was learning differently.

“I’ll try to avoid sinking in my claws too deeply.”

“I think you’re good for him,” Sarah Jane assessed, holding open the door and letting River precede her.  “He seems to do best with people who can stand up to him.  _Don’t_ fall into the trap of worshipping him,” she admonished.  “He might seem invincible when you first meet him, but trust me, he’s very, very fallible.”

River sighed, “You’ve certainly given me plenty to think about.”

(vi)

When they got back to the table, Jack had joined the Doctor and Sir Alistair.  The two women took chairs and joined the huddle.

“The Mouth of Quincunx,” the Brigadier was saying.  “I know I’ve heard it mentioned somewhere, or read about it, but it must have been a passing reference, because nothing about it stands out.”

River drew her vortex manipulator from her handbag and showed him the 3-D image of the artifact, keeping the device close to her body, so that onlookers wouldn’t be able to see.

“Still not ringing any bells,” the Brigadier grunted.

“Jack?” asked the Doctor.

Harkness sat stroking his chin, lost in thought.  “I’d swear I’ve heard that name before, but nothing’s coming to me.  I’ve been through Torchwood’s records, right back to the Victorian age, and there’s nothing.”

The Brigadier pulled a mobile phone from an inner pocket.  “Dead useful, these things,” he said.  “How’d we ever get along without them?”

“Who’re you calling?” asked Sarah Jane.

“I’m not calling anyone; I’m sending her a text message.  My invaluable assistant, Elena Sanchez, asking her to look through the archives of UNIT-Peru.  There’s heaps of things that haven’t been electronically archived yet, even though she’s been on the job for two years, now.”

“How’d that happen?” asked Sarah Jane.

“Political issues,” Sir Alistair shrugged.  “There was a military coup against the president in 1968, and a lot of records didn’t come to light until this century.”  His brows pulled together as he thumbed keys on his mobile.  “That’s why I’ve been down there for so long—it turned out the Peruvian military had been sitting on UNIT’s records for alien activity in South America practically since the second war.”

River glanced at the Doctor, baffled; he translated, “World War II.”

“And I know I’ve come across the term Mouth of Quincunx while I was there, but I can’t remember the context.”  His mouth twisted into a wry smile.  “This is the thing about aging: you can remember something from fifty years ago with perfect clarity, but you can’t put your hands on the spectacles you set down five minutes ago.”

“You, too?” Jack laughed, although he couldn’t be a day older than forty.

“Something related to Incan society, maybe?” the Doctor suggested.

“I can’t say,” Sir Alistair told him, “but if there’s a connection, Elena will find it.  There.”  Satisfied, he pressed a button to send the message.  “I’m not quite a dinosaur, yet.”

“Thank you,” said River.  “I appreciate your taking the time to do this.”

“What’s the purpose?” asked Sarah Jane.  “Are you on some kind of treasure hunt?”

“Trying to retrieve a lost artifact,” River said.  “It has a lot of historical value for the people who lost it.  All evidence points to it falling through time to present-day Vermont, but the Doctor and I have had no luck finding it, after three months of combing the region.”

“And in the same timeframe, there’s been two acts of vandalism and ten violent deaths,” the Doctor added, “almost all of it directed against religious organizations and practitioners.”

“What, like hate crimes?” asked Sarah Jane.

“They might be,” the Doctor allowed.  “But the violence has been fairly random—there doesn’t seem to be any pattern to it.”

“Interesting stuff, but it’s not jogging anything up here.”  Jack tapped the side of his head.  “I’ll keep working on it.”

“And you think the artifact might have something to do with this spate of violence?” Sir Alistair asked the Doctor.

“A missing alien artifact and a sudden rise in crime in the region where it was lost?” the Doctor said.  “In your experience, have two things like that ever _not_ been connected?”

“It would be a first.”  The Brigadier’s moustache twitched.

The four broke out of their huddle when Gwen and Rhys approached.

“Jack, you’re wanted outside—the wedding party’s lining up at the door,” Gwen said.

“The photographer’s done?” Jack laughed.  “It only took, what, ninety minutes?”

“Get your arse out there,” Gwen ordered.  She and Rhys took seats.  Ianto and Mickey were also heading for the table, both carrying drinks and in the process of becoming inebriated, by the look of things.

“What now?” River asked the Doctor.

“The introduction of the wedding party,” the Doctor said.

“We already know who they are,” River sighed.

“Pomp and ceremony,” the Doctor grinned.  “Trust me, Earth humans _love_ it.”

(vii)

After the second course, River had to slow down and pace herself on the food.  By the time the main course came out, she was stuffed, amazed that the others at the table could eat and eat and eat, without any evident signs of discomfort.  She noticed Sarah Jane and the Brigadier limiting themselves, perhaps due to their ages.  The Doctor, on the other hand, consumed everything in front of him.

The liquor flowed like water.  Waitstaff hovered all around, and the moment anyone’s wineglass began to empty, a slim, black-clad figure would emerge to refill it.  And if that wasn’t enough, a bartender served a wide variety of lethal concoctions.  Before long, the atmosphere in the ballroom had grown very loud and merry.  Up at the head table, the wedding party dined, their families seated at tables nearby.  Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, and if they weren’t, the abundant liquor would soon see to that.

When the meal ended, the band started playing, and people began to dance, boggling River’s mind.  After consuming so much food and drink, she had no wish to do anything except recline in her seat, but a surprising number of people got out on the dance floor and began gyrating wildly.  The seating arrangement broke down, and guests who weren’t dancing moved around to other tables, drinking and gossiping.  The bride and groom enjoyed a ceremonial first dance; Martha danced with her father, and then Tom with his mother, all while guests took pictures and cried.

“I could write an entire thesis on this,” River told the Doctor.  Finding themselves alone at the table, they’d pushed their chairs closer together, and he draped an arm around her shoulder.  With one fingertip, he idly traced patterns on her bare skin, causing River to break out in gooseflesh.  “On the one hand, you have the very solemn marriage ceremony, but on the other hand, you have this orgy of music, food, alcohol, and dancing.”

He laughed, “Oh, this is nothing.  Some places I’ve been, the wedding celebration can last an entire week.”

They watched couples on the dance floor: Gwen and Rhys, Tish and Daniel.  Jack had coaxed Sarah Jane up for one number, and Mickey had caught the eye of an attractive young woman on the Jones side.

“Don’t you want to dance with me?” River asked.

“Thought you weren’t up for it,” the Doctor smiled.

“Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves.  What’s this dance they’re doing now?”

“It’s called the foxtrot,” the Doctor explained.

“Do you know it?”

“Passably,” he said.

“Come on, then,” she said, standing, pulling him to his feet.  He started to protest, but she told him, “I’m not taking no for an answer.”  She put her arms around him, and they joined the happy throng on the dance floor.

(viii)

The wedding planner had told Martha that “nobody” had receiving lines anymore, and given the number of guests, she didn’t feel like spending another two hours on her feet trying to greet everyone.  Instead, she and Tom made rounds of the ballroom, stopping at each table to say hello to friends and relatives.  She also kept an eye on the dancers, to be sure nobody was sick or causing problems.

During a break between numbers, Martha was able to catch the Doctor’s eye at last.  The timing was good: Tom needed to visit the loo.  On the dance floor, River had roped Ianto into a rumba.  Martha giggled, but the solemn Welshman had shown himself a more than competent dancer.

“Aren’t you a right Fred Astaire?” Martha teased when she finally got the Doctor to herself.

He joked, “Give me enough champagne, and I can do anything.”

They left the ballroom, crossing through the hotel lobby and into a glassed-in atrium full of plants and flowers.  A crushed gravel path meandered among the plants, and a stream bubbled its merry way through a stone brook.  A pure illusion, Martha smiled to herself—all of it was fake.

“Can’t believe some alien baddie hasn’t crashed the party yet.”

“It’s not over,” the Doctor said.  “How’re you doing?”

“I’m great,” Martha told him.  “Everything went off so perfectly—I’m not legally entitled to ask for anything else.”

“Hitched without a hitch!” the Doctor said.  “You deserve every moment of this.”  He asked, “So why’d you need to talk to me?”

“It’s about Donna,” she said, and at his stricken expression, quickly added, “Nothing bad!  I just thought you’d want to know.”

“Why, what’s happened?” he asked.

“She’s running her own agency now,” Martha said.  “You’ll never guess what it’s called.”  He lifted an eyebrow, and she said, “Super Temps.”

To her relief, the Doctor almost smiled.

“After… you know, after last June, me and Jack and Sarah Jane talked about what we could do for her.”

The Doctor nodded.

“Sarah Jane got hold of Donna’s grandfather, and he had the idea that Donna should start her own agency, instead of just temping for other people all the time.”

“It’s not like she isn’t bossy enough,” the Doctor said.

“Right!  And we remembered the Mr. Copper foundation, so we—”

“Wait, wait—Mr. Copper?”

“Yeah, he helped Harriet Jones developed the sub-wave network.”

“I _know_ Mr. Copper!” the Doctor said.  “I met him on the Titanic—the spaceship, not the ocean liner.”

“Well, he’s set up a foundation, where he gives grants—you know, seed money—for different kinds of projects.  Mostly technological, but when we talked to him, he told her he’d be happy to help any friend of yours.”

“Bless him,” the Doctor said.  “So, who suggested all this to Donna?”

“Wilf,” said Martha.  “He told Donna she should start an agency, and he’d read in the paper about this bloke who’d give her the funds.”

“Fantastic!” the Doctor said.  “How’s she doing?”

“Runaway success,” Martha grinned.  “’Cos everyone we know is sending her work.  The museum where Mum works, Dad’s business, the paper where Sarah Jane freelances, the hospital where Tom works, the investment firm Tish works for—everyone we know, we’ve told them: if you want a temp, call Donna Noble.”

“Martha, that’s brilliant!”

“She’s still one of us, even if she doesn’t know it,” Martha said.  “The Doctor’s Army looks out for its own.”

He hugged her hard.  “I can’t thank you enough for this.”

“It’s the least we could do,” Martha said, squeezing his ribs.  It felt like her arms would wrap around him twice, and she thought sadly of Donna’s joke, _Hug him, and you get a paper cut_.  She let him go and went on, “Sarah Jane keeps in touch with Wilf.  He said Donna’s moving into her own flat after the new year—so that should be like tomorrow, or the next day.”

“I’m so glad,” the Doctor said, and for one perilous moment, Martha feared he’d burst into tears.  “You have no idea what this means.”

“Damn straight I do,” Martha said.  “She was my friend, too, remember.”

“Just so long as there’s no personal contact,” the Doctor warned.  “We don’t want her to see someone she met traveling with me and suddenly remembering everything.  That would kill her, literally kill her.”

“No, no, that’s the clever bit,” Martha said.  “She doesn’t have to see or talk to any of us.  All we’re doing is sending her customers.”

“The best guardian angels anyone could ask for.”

“She’ll be all right,” Martha said.

They heard the click of a woman’s high-heeled shoes, and Sarah Jane’s voice called, “Doctor?”

“Yes, what is it?” he responded, and Martha followed him back to the lobby.

“It’s Sir Alistair,” Sarah Jane said, eyes shining with excitement.  “He says he might have something for you.”

(ix)

In a courtesy center, the Brigadier had logged on to his e-mail remotely.  Wire-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose, he read a message from his personal assistant.  “It’s from the record of a spaceship that crashed into the Pacific, off the coast of Peru,” he said.  “In the December of 1975.  No survivors, and most of the ship was too badly scorched to salvage.  But the central computer was recovered intact and put into storage.”

Sir Alastair went on, “It was only about eight years ago that we were able to access the computer’s memory banks, to see what was on it.  And it’s only been since 2003 that UNIT developed adequate translation software to understand what was in the captain’s log.”

“What did they find?” asked Sarah Jane, excited.

“A sad story,” the Brigadier said.  “It was a survey ship from the planet Paltauf, making a pass through our solar system, and their engines failed.  They tried to make an emergency landing on Earth and burned up in the atmosphere.”

The Doctor made a small noise of distress.  “I know Paltauf,” he said softly.  “Lovely place.”

“Not to be single-minded, but what does this have to do with the Mouth of Quincunx?”  River asked.

“The reference was in the captain’s log, from much earlier.  The team had also been on Jahoo, on a previous survey mission.  Some dignitaries from the planet’s government gave them a tour of the museum where the artifact was stored.”

“When was this?” the Doctor broke in.  “Is there a date on that entry?”

“We think it’s this number, here,” the Brigadier pointed.

The Doctor put on his spectacles and read off the digits.  River said, “That’s old—about five Jahoo years after the artifact was discovered.”

“The survey team’s captain said that his crew scanned the artifact and found energy traces suggesting it had come from another dimension.  One of the crew’s research experts didn’t think it came from Jahoo—she said it might have come from another planet entirely,” the Brigadier said.

“Anything else?” asked Sarah Jane.

“Yes, the government delegates invited the Paltauf ship’s crew to spend a few days on the planet as guests, to rest and refuel their ship.  During their stay, the members of the survey team became increasingly hostile toward one another, until finally the navigator murdered the second lieutenant.”

“Oh, no!” said Sarah Jane.

“The navigator went mad.  He ranted about the Mouth of Quincunx, telling the others, and I quote, ‘when the gates are open, he will feed and feed, and nothing will stand against him.’”

“Who’s he?” asked Sarah Jane.  “What gates was he talking about?”

“The captain never found out.  The navigator couldn’t be calmed, even with sedatives.  He referred to the Paltauf crew and the Jahoo delegates as ‘filthy, foul degenerates who all should be drained of their impure, blasphemous blood.’”

“Lovely,” said River.

The Doctor said, “One of the murder victims in Vermont was exsanguinated.  The other nine were burned to death.  Anything in there about burning?”

“Funny you should ask,” the Brigadier said, his tone very dry.  “The navigator said that Jahoo itself would burn—‘burn until even its heretical stones were turned to ash.’”

Martha said, “Was he possessed?”

“Nobody knows, because he hanged himself to death.  Prior to dying, he’d cut himself, and he painted the image of the Mouth of Quincunx using his own blood, all over the walls of his cell.  And he left a last message: ‘the gates will open and all will be consumed.’”

Thoroughly shaken, River said, “That sounds like fanaticism at its worst.”

“After the incident, the government of Jahoo kept the artifact inside special shielding, to prevent it having possible influences on people’s minds.”

“The shielding was destroyed when the artifact vanished,” River said.

“I don’t like the idea of that thing here on Earth,” Martha stated.  “Bad enough we have our own homegrown nutters; we don’t need an alien artifact making ‘em even more crazy.”

“No, and I don’t like the parallels with what’s going on in Vermont, the Doctor said.  “I only can’t understand the difference in intensity—on Jahoo, the ship’s crew were affected in a very short timeframe, but in Vermont, the violence has been random acts over several months.”

“Almost as if the effect of the thing has been diffused,” River said

“Shielding?” suggested the Brigadier.  “Doctor, what would that take?”

“Psychic shielding?” he said.  “I could set up something like that, but it’s beyond Earth’s current technology.”

“Maybe some kind of… I don’t know, accidental shielding?”  Martha suggested.  “Like if it’s in a church or something?”

“Good thinking,” the Doctor said.  “It’s possible.”

“The Paltauf survey ship left Jahoo, and that was it,” the Brigadier concluded.  “There’s nothing else.  The captain mostly wanted to put the incident behind him.”

“And the Mouth of Quincunx stayed in the museum on Jahoo, behind psychic shielding, until it was lost,” River said.

“They never tried to find out more about it?” asked Martha.  “Where it came from, why it had that effect?”

River shook her head.  “I’m not happy to hear all this,” she said.  “The people I spoke to on Jahoo swore they knew nothing about the artifact, its significance, its history—they made it sound completely inert.”

“This must be why they’re so desperate to get it back,” the Doctor said.  “They know how dangerous it is.”

“You have to find it,” Martha told the Doctor.  “Before it does any more damage.  If the effects become widespread, we might have global rioting on our hands.”

“The stakes are suddenly a lot higher,” the Doctor said, frowning.

“We should get back and start looking,” River said.

At that moment, the wedding planner appeared, looking irate.  “Dr. Jones, we’re cutting the cake.  The photographer’s waiting.”

“Yes, let’s get our priorities straight,” River grumbled.

(x)

“We need to get going.”  River tugged on the Doctor’s sleeve.

“Jack’s going to sing,” he protested.  “We can stay for that.”

“But we—”

“Shh.”  He was smiling at the River in a way that made her weak at the knees—damn those eyes—and she found it impossible to sustain much anger toward him.

“I don’t want to get back to Vermont and find a slaughter.  I can’t help feeling responsible for all this.  I thought the Jahoovians were being level with me.”

“I know.”

“They sent me to do their dirty work, the bastards.”

The band started playing a slow number, and the Doctor drew River into his arms.  “One more dance?” he murmured.

“You devil,” she sighed, letting herself be tugged onto the dance floor.  “Just one, though.”

Up on the stage, Jack had taken the lead singer’s place at the microphone, and he began to sing in a perfect baritone voice:

_Maybe it’s too early in the game_

_Ah, but I thought I’d ask you just the same:_

_What are you doing New Year’s, New Year’s Eve?_

River felt herself getting very flushed, aware of the Doctor’s body pressed against her own.  The song was sultry, sentimental to an almost ridiculous degree, but the way Jack sang made the music feel like shimmering ribbons of eroticism winding their way through the air.  It didn’t help that the Doctor was gazing down at her, eyes big and dilated, a hint of a smile touching his mouth.

Around them, other couples swayed, hypnotized by the music and Jack’s voice.  River caught a glimpse of Tom and Martha, Clive and Francine, Gwen and Rhys.  Then the rest of the world blurred away when the Doctor leaned down and kissed her.

It wasn’t a deep or a passionate kiss, but the pressure of his lips, firm and soft, made River’s blood run molten through her veins.  She reached up and kissed him in return, lacing her fingers through the hair on the back of his head.  Once she started that, she couldn’t stop, ruffling the brown thatch until it stood straight on end.  His tongue explored the corners of her mouth, and their teeth clicked together.

The music ended, and everyone applauded.  River leaned against the Doctor; the search for the Mouth of Quincunx suddenly seemed distant and trivial.

“Thank you, everyone!” Jack boomed.  Glancing at his wrist, he said, “Twenty seconds to midnight!”  The drunken crowd began shouting out numbers, counting down to the New Year, then cheering and yelling at the stroke of midnight.  The music started up again, and people began singing in loud voices.  Jack hopped down off the stage and swept Ianto into his arms for an enthusiastic kiss.

“What’s this?” River laughed.

“Auld Lang Syne,” the Doctor smiled.  “Traditionally sung on New Year’s Eve.  Come on.”

Arm in arm, they slipped out of the ballroom.  Behind them, voices chorused, “For days of auld lang syne, my friends, for days of auld lang syne.”

Outside, the cold air came as a rude shock.  The sun had set hours earlier.

“That’ll sober you up in a hurry,” River remarked, shivering while the Doctor unlocked the door.  “Why don’t you just snap your fingers?” she teased, watching him stride to the control panel.

“I only do that to impress beautiful woman,” he smiled.

“You sly dog.”

He grinned broadly, throwing a lever.  The tall, translucent columns began to rise and fall in their steady rhythm.

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

“What I _want_ to do is take you home and make love to you until I can’t see straight.  What I know we _need_ to do is to take Martha’s suggestion and check some of the local places of worship for that damned artifact.”

“Nothing says we can’t take a quick tour of the area’s churches and temples before we retire for the night,” he said, left eyebrow wiggling.

“How many places are you talking about?”

“In the whole thirty kilometer radius?  Over a hundred, maybe.  But I’d say we should look mostly around the town.  That’s closer to a dozen.  It’s not a big place.”

“All right,” River said, sliding arm around him.  “Just a quick look, though.”

He kissed her.  “Very, very quick,” he agreed.

(xi)

“I think the expression ‘wild goose chase’ applies here,” River sighed.

The Doctor cast the yellow beam of his torch around the small sanctum of yet another temple.  “No, ‘needle in a haystack,’” he said.  In his right hand he held the sonic screwdriver, turning and scanning the room.  “It’s not here.  I didn’t think it would be.”

“Why?”

“These buildings aren’t old enough.  The oldest one we’ve seen was built in 1784.  That’s nothing compared to the Mouth of Quincunx.”

“What actually causes the shielding?  The age of the building?”

“The energy of the people who’ve worshiped here, year after year,” the Doctor explained.  “Human mental energy has a remarkable cumulative effect—a couple of years ago, I used that phenomenon when I needed to heal myself.  But none of these buildings could hide something so old—you’d need a place that’s at least a thousand years old, if not older.”

“So, where could it be?  Where’s it hiding?”

“Very good questions,” the Doctor murmured.

“We know it must be in the vicinity, based on what Sir Alistair described,” River said.  “It must have a terrible effect on the human mind.”  She was hugging herself, shivering.

“Here.”  The Doctor removed his jacket, handing it to River.  She slid it over her dress, grateful for the added warmth, amused that apart from being too long, the jacket fit her perfectly.  She inhaled deeply; the garment was steeped in his scent.

“Nothing,” the Doctor concluded.  “Two more to go.  Come on.”

They materialized inside the next church, a small affair in stone, very similar to the others.  This one had a lot of colorful glass windows, showing stylized depictions of men and a few women, all wearing long robes, their expressions detached and remote.

“Who are these characters?” River chuckled.

“Saints, plus a few angels.”

“Why are they so special?”

“Most of the saints were supposed to have been people who knew Jesus, or spread his teachings, or died gruesome deaths because of their belief in him, or some combination of the above.”

“‘Supposed to?’”

“A lot of the stories were exaggerated over time.  More than a few are complete fabrications.  They’re still important though—they fulfilled humanity’s particular needs.”

“The need to believe in a higher power?”

“Exactly.”  The Doctor searched the sanctum.  “And we’re not going to find anything here, either.  This is a lovely re-creation of a Norman church, but it was built in 1955.  Not so long ago.  You know, Jesus Christ was a name given to him by the Greeks?  His real name was Joshua ben Joseph.  He was Jewish, a carpenter’s son.  Very ordinary, but as kind and generous as anyone I’ve ever met.  Of course, I had no idea who he was at the time; it was one of my first trips to Earth.  Here I was, an odd-looking stranger, and he invited me and my granddaughter into his home, shared what little food he had.”  River listened, spellbound, not wanting to say anything, lest she interrupt this rambling stream of thought.  “He was married, then, but nobody knows that now, and it’s considered blasphemous even to suggest it.  Three children.  They all died, his whole family—illness, I imagine.  He started his ministry then, wandering around and preaching.  Looking for meaning, like so many of us.  Well, there’s nothing here.  One more to go.”

Stunned, River followed him back into the ship.  “Granddaughter?” she ventured.  The Doctor barely looked old enough to have children, let alone grandchildren.

“Hmm?  Yes.”  He busied himself with the control panel.  The ship dematerialized, and River grabbed the console to keep her feet.  When the reverberations stopped, the Doctor said, “Here we are, _allons-y_.”  Any further conversation about his past had ended, and River didn’t press for more.

Their search of the last church proved as fruitless as all the others.

“Well, that’s it,” the Doctor said.

Their final stop was the common in the center of town.  Snow fell, thick and soft, and a few revelers still milled about.  Otherwise, everything was quiet, peaceful.

“Nobody’s gone off their rocker yet,” the Doctor observed.

“Yet,” River reminded him.

“So, now what?” he asked.

“I know we should keep looking,” she said, flinching as wet snowflakes landed on her bare neck.  “I’m not really dressed for it, though.”

“It’s up to you,” he said.

River thought it over.  She felt a sense of responsibility to the people of this region, but the Doctor was right: at least for now, the Mouth of Quincunx was dormant, not affecting anyone.

“Let’s go home,” she said, sliding her hand into his.

The ship next materialized outside of the chalet.  Nearly a foot of fresh snow lay on the ground.

“Real snow, for once,” the Doctor said, holding out a hand to catch the drifting flakes, eyes full of nostalgia.

“Is there any other kind?” she asked.

He laughed, taking her hand.

“Your palm is sweaty,” she teased.

“I can’t imagine why,” he said, smiling at her.  With a snap of his fingers, the TARDIS door closed.  Still holding onto him with her left hand, River unlocked the chalet door and drew him inside.  The damned Mouth of Quincunx could wait until later—or at least for one night.

**To be continued...**


	7. Angels of the Silences--Chapter Six

Chapter Six

_Friend of the Devil_

The day before spring classes began, Cassie trudged through the snow to Dr. Smith’s office.  She lacked the enthusiasm even to try out the cross-country skis she’d been given as a holiday gift: she just wanted to get this appointment done and over with.

She pulled back her shoulders and tried to compose her face into an expression of studied nonchalance.  She’d spent the three weeks of vacation visiting friends, attending plays and concerts, drinking in the culture and life of New York City—why should she be made to feel like a bumpkin by some poodle-haired computer technician?

The door to Dr. Smith’s office stood slightly ajar, and Cassie knocked on the frame.

“Who is it?” he called.

She poked her head inside.  “Me.”

“Cassie!  Have a seat!  Tea?  Banana?”

“No, I’m good.  I just need you to e-sign my schedule so I can register online.”

“Oh, right.  What are you taking?”

Cassie handed over the printout of her spring courses, trying not to stare at him.  She’d expected Dr. Smith to look happy, maybe even smug, assuming he’d spent the better part of three weeks getting laid.  Instead, he looked tired and haggard and _sad_ , of all things, deep black circles beneath his eyes.  Even his hair looked dejected.

Maybe he was sick.  Maybe he and Shira Nahar had split up, or better, that their romance had fizzled before it even got off the ground.  Maybe—

“Why only three classes?” he asked.

“To give me more time for my thesis,” Cassie said.  “I have way more credits than I need—I overloaded a couple of semesters, plus summer classes and AP credits.”

“Why don’t you take my special topics seminar?” he invited.  “It’s a course in basic astrophysics.”

“That thud you just heard is my jaw hitting the floor,” she protested.  “ _Astrophysics?_   Do I look like Einstein?  Or Stephen Hawking?”

“Why not?”  He pushed a piece of paper across the desk, a colorful flier announcing the seminar.  “You’ve had at least a year of general physics, right?”

“Yeah, it’s required for the bio major,” Cassie said.

“Then you could handle this,” he said, eyes shining.  “Come on, Cassie—it won’t be any fun without you.”

“Could you maybe get more blatant with the flattery?” she laughed, though inside she was thrilled.

“How will the other students learn anything if someone as smart as you isn’t there to help them?”

“Oh, stop!”

“Please?” he wheedled.  “If I don’t get at least ten students in the class, it’ll be canceled.”

Cassie remembered that Ethan Allen students could take three elective courses on a pass-fail basis.  Since she wasn’t a physics major, she had this option for Dr. Smith’s class.  She’d still have to do the work, true, but without the effort needed for a graded course.  She’d planned to use the extra time to write her thesis and visit whatever veterinary schools to which she was admitted, but the prospect of seeing Dr. Smith for an extra three hours a week tempted her sorely.

_Glutton for punishment_ , she thought, _in more ways than one_.

“Okay,” she relented.

“Brilliant!” he crowed, turning to the PC monitor.  In a few seconds, he’d added the course to Cassie’s schedule, and with one click approved the whole thing.  Cassie would receive a confirmation e-mail from the registrar’s office.  Her last semester at college—Cassie realized with a funny pang that she would never again register for classes at Ethan Allen.

“How was your holiday?” he asked, leaning back in his seat, cupping a mug of tea in his long hands.

“Good,” said Cassie.  “I slept a lot, saw some plays, visited my great-grandmother.”  Boldly she asked, “What about you?”

“Hmm?”  The question took him aback.  “Oh—went to London, caught up with some old friends.”  She waited for him to mention the wedding or his new girlfriend, but he didn’t.  Cassie’s hopes continue to rise.

“I need to run,” she said.  “I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”

“Right,” he smiled.  Cassie left, swallowing hard.  She knew he’d never open up to her, never view her as anything more than an intelligent child.  And really, she should stop this fruitless mooning—he was _old_ , she realized, older than he looked, maybe forty or even forty-five.  _He could be my father_ , she knew, but that hardly dampened what she felt.  _The heart wants what it wants_.  _Even if it’s a middle-aged Limey git who only owns two suits_.  Cassie trudged out into the snow, scolding herself with every step.

(ii)

A loud popping noise startled River out of the pleasant doze she’d fallen into.  She raised her head but realized it was only a piece of wood in the fireplace downstairs.  The chalet consisted mostly of one large, open room, with a charming overhead loft for sleeping at one end, a half-wall permitting a view of the interior.  A good-sized fire warmed the entire house.

After checking to make sure no burning embers had escaped, River settled herself back into the mattress, drawing up the covers and curling into the warmth of the Doctor’s body.

“All right?” he murmured.

“Yeah,” she said.

He sighed, stretched, and closed his eyes, slipping into the peculiar trance that for him passed as sleep.  River never tired of watching him.  Although he appeared to be deeply unconscious, he would wake in an instant if need be.  Now, he seemed less asleep than in a state of contemplation, as if he’d descended into some underwater garden, to ponder weighty matters in which others could play no part.

In the orange light of the fire, his skin had a warm, ivory cast, dotted with charming, boyish freckles.  River admired the lines and planes of his face.  His ears and nose were too big, his chin too small, but oddly those imperfections added to his appeal rather than detracting from it.  His breathing was even and steady, the rise and fall of his chest barely perceptible beneath the sheets and blankets.  His bare shoulders were very slim, no wider than River’s own.  She marveled that he had room for one heart inside those ribs, let alone two.  Unclothed, he was painfully thin.  River normally didn’t care for his body type, but for the Doctor, she made an exception: she loved his long, graceful lines.  She suspected he’d also awakened some dormant mother hen instinct in her: she couldn’t stop clucking and fussing over his health, coaxing him to eat more, although there certainly was nothing wrong with his appetite.

In bed, she’d found him loving and skilled, but reticent almost to the point of paralysis.  The first few times they’d made love, River had taken all the initiative.  She hated grilling him about his sexual history, but there was one question that had seemed too obvious not to ask.

“Have you been with a human before?” she’d asked after their first time, stroking his chest, running her fingers through the pelt of soft hair.

“Yes,” he’d told her, but hadn’t elaborated.  River suspected his shyness might stem from some Time Lord prohibition against mingling with “lesser” species—she knew from both her studies and personal experience that such conditioning could take a lifetime to overcome.

  Her greatest source of frustration lay in realizing there was nothing she could give him—physically or otherwise—that would assuage the monstrous grief at his very core.  She could give him pleasure and companionship, even love, but those things would only ease his sadness, never completely heal it.  For a woman who prided herself on success in all arenas of life, this immovable barricade was maddening.  River knew she should let it go and accept that she couldn’t solve all his problems, but it wasn’t in her nature to surrender without a fight.

_Now, there’s irony for you_ , she thought staring up at the ceiling.  She’d found a man who matched her so well on so many levels—intellectually, emotionally, sexually—but he was a time-traveling member of another species, far older than her, someone who’d experienced things River could scarcely begin to fathom, someone whose essential self was so remote as to be almost untouchable. 

With a loud sigh, she turned onto her side and willed herself toward sleep.  She still had a cover identity to maintain and a dangerous artifact to find, neither of which she could do well if she exhausted herself into a stupor.

(iii)

One of the biggest challenges in Cassie’s research project involved the interference of crows.  Almost as soon as she set out the small bags of peanuts, the aggressive birds would swoop in to investigate.  She didn’t want to make too much of a racket, lest she also scare off the squirrels, but somehow she had to get rid of the crows.  At Exa’s suggestion, she’d downloaded a sound file of a barking dog to her cell phone, and as soon as the crows landed, Cassie would play the canine ring tone.  The trick worked like magic.

Down from a tree came the first inquisitive rodent, sniffing its way over to the collection of yellow and black bags.  The most recent snowfall had left the ground covered with as much as four feet of snow in some places, and as she’d hoped, the peanuts provided a tempting easy meal.  The big male squirrel scurried over to the bags and began to investigate.

Hunkered down behind a nearby snowbank, Cassie watched with her binoculars, taking notes in shorthand.  The squirrel picked up a yellow bag, tearing into it with his claws and teeth, and finding it empty, discarded the paper.  The squirrel next picked up one of the black bags.  Cassie exhaled, watching the creature tear the paper and eat the peanuts inside.  From then on, it ignored the yellow bags, choosing only the black ones.  When another squirrel tried to get in on the feast, the big male rattled his tail and made loud warning noises.  As he chased off the interloper, a third squirrel appeared, grabbed a black bag, and shot like a fuzzy gray rocket up the side of a pine tree with the bag in its mouth.

Cassie laughed, recording the behavior of all three rodents until the peanuts in the black bags had been consumed, and the animals left to forage elsewhere.

She’d been at this for weeks now, setting up her bait all over campus and in the surrounding woods, observing the feeding behavior of the squirrels.  It rarely took more than one experience with an empty yellow bag for the animals to choose only the black bags—the ones that contained the peanuts.  Cassie had spent a ridiculous amount of time opening and emptying paper bags and resealing the ends with glue; to be sure the squirrels weren’t responding to the smell of the glue, she’d also had to open and re-seal the bags with the peanuts in them.  Chelsea and Exa, bless their hearts, had offered to help with this tedious project, and the three of them would sit around watching television: Chelsea painting the bags while Cassie and Exa opened, emptied, and re-glued.  _By the time this is over, I never wanna see another peanut for as long as I live_ , Cassie thought, collecting the torn paper.

Still, at least she could be certain the squirrels were responding to the color of the bags, and it excited her that the animals living out in the woods learned just as quickly as those on campus, which presumably had more experience with human food sources.

Cassie stretched her cramped, cold muscles and put all her gear into her backpack: time to get going.  The afternoon light was waning: in early February, the days were still short, and her breath puffed out in frosty white clouds.  She latched her new skis onto her sport boots and pushed off, gliding across the snow and back toward campus.  One thing she loved about Ethan Allen—and that she’d miss if she went someplace warmer for vet school—was the network of groomed trails all over campus and the vicinity, which made getting around on skis wonderfully easy.

This trail ended at the side street where the college-owned apartments were located.  A lot of graduate students, adjuncts, and visiting scholars lived here—including Dr. Smith.  Cassie unlatched her skis and shifted them under one arm before she ventured onto the road—plowed, of course, for the sake of people who needed to drive cars.

She knew that Dr. Smith lived at number 14, and when she passed by, she was startled to see a small car buried in snow in his driveway.  Did he never use it?  His apartment looked dingy and dilapidated, almost as if nobody lived there.  He’d barely even cleared the walkway.

Cassie hesitated, then ventured up the walk.  She knew his schedule well—it was posted right on his office door—and at this hour on a Thursday, he’d be instructing the intermediate cell biology lab.  She peered in through the front window, but saw no signs of life.

_I really am obsessed_ , she thought glumly, but nevertheless, she felt driven by a compulsion to find out just how serious he was with Shira Nahar.  She’d glimpsed the two together from time to time, but reading their expressions and body language was difficult: if they were romantically involved, they gave almost no outward signs of it.

She tried the door and found it locked.  Before she realized what she was doing, Cassie had drawn out her always-useful Swiss army knife.  This model included a stainless steel pin, which she inserted into the cheap door lock.  She tried a cautious twist to the right, and to her immense satisfaction, the door popped open.

Cassie leaned her skis and poles against the wall and undid the Velcro straps of her sport boots: if anyone came by and asked what she was doing—which she doubted; the street was deserted—she’d just say she was leaving off some things for her faculty advisor.  Cassie didn’t lie often, but when she needed to, she’d always been able to concoct plausible stories.

She recognized on some level that her behavior was obsessive, verging on stalker-ish, but part of her felt a guilty thrill at this illicit activity.  Anyway, this opportunity to check out Dr. Smith’s digs might not come again.

She padded through the apartment in stocking feet, shocked to find nothing—literally, nothing.  The place was empty, not lived in.  Cassie found no food in the fridge, no sheets on the bed, no water in the toilet.  Everything was covered with dust.  In the kitchen, she found a door that she guessed led to a basement.  This was locked, also, but it yielded just as easily to her metal pin.  Cassie flicked on the light and tiptoed down the steps.

The basement was musty but bare, containing only a washer, dryer, and a laundry sink.  Hanging from a rope clothesline, she found two shirts on hangers.  Apart from that, nothing.

_Is he living with Shira?_ Cassie wondered.  _Where does he sleep?  What does he eat?_

She turned her head and spotted a kind of tall, wooden cabinet in one corner.  It was painted blue, with small frosted windows at the top.  _Weird_.  A sign over the doors read POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX.

Did this belong to Dr. Smith?  Or was it college property, just being stored here?  Cassie could sense a quiet hum, and when she touched a wooden panel, she felt it vibrating beneath her fingers, as if there were a motor inside.  Surprised, she tried to open the door.  Locked.  This time, the pin didn’t work, and Cassie didn’t want to force the matter, lest she betray her presence.  She put away her jackknife with reluctance.  Aware of the time, she returned to the kitchen, locking the door behind her, then put her sport shoes back on, locked the front door and pulled it shut, then gathered up her skis and poles.  Utterly flummoxed, she made her way back to her dorm room, where she unloaded her gear and sat staring at the wall.  She loved Dr. Smith’s eccentricities, but now he struck her as an out-and-out weirdo.

On an impulse, she opened up her laptop and Googled “police public call box.”  It turned out to be a kind of old-fashioned communications device used by British police—essentially an empty box with a telephone on the outside.  _So why the hell would one of them vibrate like a giant motor?_ Cassie wondered.  She checked a few other links, but the sites all gave her the same information: police boxes were relics of a bygone era.

Near the bottom of the page, one link caught her eye: _the police box is said to be associated with a British secret agent code-named ‘the Doctor.’_   Cassie rolled her eyes, but she clicked on the link anyway.  She felt even more of an idiot when she realized the web page was called ALIEN VISITATIONS AND GOVERNMENT COVERUP CONSPIRACIES.  All the usual suspects were represented: Roswell, Area 51, the Yeti, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster.  The sixth heading was titled, “The Doctor.”

_Accounts vary with regard to the identity of the British man whose code name is ‘the Doctor.’  He is said to typically pass himself off as a scientist or traveler.  He has been associated with UNIT, a military branch of the United Nations that deals with extraterrestrial threats.  A blue police call box is associated with this traveler; sources wishing to remain anonymous claim the box disguises alien technology.  Others say that the Doctor himself is an alien.  There are numerous references to this man and the blue box throughout recorded human history.  Given the variation in his physical description, it is also possible ‘the Doctor’ is a code word or alias for a number of British special agents.  He also is said to use the name John Smith for everyday purposes._

“No way,” Cassie muttered.  “This is lame.”  She returned to the Ethan Allen homepage, aware that her heart was pounding and her hands had grown damp with sweat.  “God, I’m so fucking stupid to believe this.”

But John Smith?  Who always insisted people call him “Doctor?”  Who had a vibrating blue police call box in his basement?  And was brilliantly intelligent, but apparently rootless?  Was this too much coincidence?

_For all you know, he’s a nut job who created that web page himself._

Cassie needed to talk to someone else, someone who’d listen without laughing, someone whose discretion she could trust.  In the past, that would have been Dr. Cavanaugh.   Now it would have to be someone else.  Cassie threw on her boots and coat, grabbed her room keys, and went whirling out of the dorm.

Ethan Allen’s least popular dorms were the ones on the outskirts of campus, including Crumpacker Hall, where Cassie had lived as a freshman.  Most kids hated the half-mile trek to classes, especially when the weather was bad, but Cassie had loved the big old heap, which made her think of how Manderley must have looked in _Rebecca_ : gray stone covered with ivy, and a multitude of beautiful windows, whose glass shimmered in the light.  Crumpacker was a favorite dorm of standoffish types and proud iconoclasts, as well as underclassmen who wanted single rooms.

Deborah Katz worked as the head resident of the dorm, in addition to her duties as the college’s Jewish chaplain, and Cassie recalled that Debbie was usually in her suite at this hour of the afternoon.  A girl working the bell desk let Cassie into the musty foyer.

“Is Debbie around?”

“Yeah, she’s in her apartment,” the girl said.

Down a gloomy corridor, and off a smaller hallway to the left, was the HR’s suite.  Cassie tapped on the door, which stood slightly ajar.

“Deb?” she called.  “Debbie?”

No answer.  After a few moments, Cassie knocked again, more loudly.  “Debbie?”

  1.   Cassie pushed open the door, and a cold breeze touched her face.  Open window?  Cassie ventured into the small apartment.  Nobody in the tiny living room.  Nobody in the kitchen, either, though the makings of a light supper lay out on the counter.  A pot of water boiled on the stove; Cassie switched off the gas.



“Deb?”

Sliding French doors opened from the kitchen onto a tiny patio outside.  The doors stood open, and a bitter wind gusted into the apartment.  Cassie stared around the kitchen.  One chair seemed violently askew; and Cassie realized that uncooked ziti lay all over the floor.  A half-empty Prince box lay nearby.  Something had interrupted Debbie’s cooking.

Cassie went to the French windows and looked out onto the patio.  She saw that someone had come through the snow drifts—more than one person—and it looked like something had been dragged through the snow as well.

She stepped outside and began following the trail.  “Debbie?” she called.  The trail weaved and bobbed, but otherwise headed straight into the woods.

She became aware, also, of the silence and her isolation, the encroaching darkness.  And then she heard the raucous caws of crows.  A few of the black birds were circling over the woods.  Cassie remembered the raven, and her heart began to pound with a queer, sick-making fear.  Her hand slipped into her pocket, and she fumbled with the buttons on her cellular.  _Please be in, please be in_.

“John Smith.”

Cassie almost fell over from sheer relief.  “It’s me,” she wheezed.

“Cassie?  Where are you?”

“In back of Crumpacker,” she gulped.  “Debbie’s gone.  The door was open, and she’s just gone.  And the crows—”

“Stay where you are,” he ordered.  “I’ll be right there.”

Cassie disconnected and stood with her teeth rattling, listening to the carrion-eaters’ ugly din.  Faster than she would have thought possible, she heard faint crunching footsteps, and a voice called out to her.

“Here,” she managed.

He came around the corner, long coat over his suit, minus the scarf: he must have left his office in a hurry.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I came to see Debbie Katz, but she’s not in her apartment.  There was pasta all over the floor, and the door was open.  And look—you can see something heavy was dragged through the snow, into the woods.  Listen to the crows.”

He looked and listened, assessing the situation, eyes grim.  “Let’s go have a look.  Don’t step in the tracks.  The police won’t be happy.”

They skirted the trail, plowing through the thigh-deep snow until they reached the woods, very dark, full of indigo shadows.  They followed the noise of the crows, which was louder than ever beneath the thick, muffling canopy of snow-covered pines.

“Stay here,” Dr. Smith said, coming to an abrupt halt.

Cassie waited while he pushed forward into a clearing.  Six or eight crows flew up, like a great, black shadow, their angry screams filling Cassie with a sense of hopeless dread.  She remembered that she’d felt this way in the meditation garden when she’d found the vandalized artwork—only this was infinitely worse.

“Is it her?” she called, tongue thick in her mouth.

“It’s bad,” he said, returning to her side.  “Don’t look.”  He already had his cellular in hand, making a call.

“Charlie?  It’s me.  I’m in the woods outside Crumpacker Hall.  You’d better ring the police and get them here as fast as you can.”  A pause.  “It’s Deborah Katz.  She’s dead.”

(iv)

River had been waiting up in the living room, and now she jumped when the Doctor walked in, kicking snow off his feet.  The legs of his trousers were soaked through.  He unwrapped the long scarf, looking exhausted to the bone.

“Bloodletting,” he said without preamble.  “Just like Lucille Cavanaugh.”

“Any signs written in blood, any warnings—?”

“No, nothing.  No bite marks, either.  No energy traces from cross-dimensional travel.  She was dragged from her home and slaughtered like an animal in the woods.”

“God.”  River watched him shuck out of the wet trousers, hanging them over a kitchen chair.  He stripped out of his jacket and the layers of shirts he wore beneath it.  River handed him a thick, terry-cloth dressing gown.  “Sit down and get warm.”

She fixed him a mug of hot chocolate, a sweet beverage Earth humans liked in cold weather, and sat with him on the sofa while he warned his feet by the fire.

“They came through the woods from the highway,” the Doctor said.  “They knew where she lived and targeted her.”  His voice shook with anger.

“No clues where they came from, no traces, nothing?”

He shook his head.  “There were tire tracks at the side of the highway where they’d parked their car, but there are hundreds of vehicles that could’ve made those tracks.  The only certain thing is that it must be someone local.  Whatever the Mouth of Quincunx is—an entity, a source of power—it’s taken over someone who lives in this vicinity.  It might even be someone who works here on campus.”

“Is there any way to learn who?”

“I’d have to read everyone on campus and in town.  It isn’t practical.”

“You can read minds?” asked River.

He didn’t answer at first, playing with the nap of his dressing gown.  “Only when I have to,” he said after a moment.

“Well, I’d say this qualifies as an urgent situation,” she said.  “I know you wouldn’t want to interfere with people’s free will, but would you rather sit around and wait for the bodies to pile up?”

He shook his head.  “It’s not that simple.”

“What would it take?”

Turning on the sofa, he said, “Look at me.”

Surprised, River turned to face him.  His gaze, like a warm searchlight, seemed to melt into her own, and River had an uncanny sense of merging with him.  Then he put his hands on the sides of her head, his fingertips pressing into her temples.

_This is what it takes_ , she heard him say.  He was _there_ , inside her mind, looking around at her thoughts, her dreams, her ambitions, her fears, all her petty neuroses.  In a flash, it was as if he’d experienced her entire life, living it vicariously alongside her.

River yelped and jerked away.

“It wouldn’t really work, trying that with a few thousand people,” the Doctor said.

River couldn’t stop staring at him.  “That’s—that was unbelievable.”  He picked up his mug and sipped more hot chocolate.  She ventured, “You’re a lot more powerful than you let on.”

“Yeah.”  He didn’t look happy.

“Why don’t you...?”  She trailed off, aware of how crass the question would sound.

“What, why don’t I use my abilities for my own gain?”  He shook his head.  “It’s not how I work.”

“So, all you do is travel and explore things?”

“It usually gets more complicated than that.”

“Can’t you put some of your brainpower to work to find that damned artifact?” she asked.  “Or at least the people it’s controlling?  Do you want this whole community turned into a blood bath?”

“Of course not!”  He glared at her over the top of his mug.  “But there’s no Time Lord magic I can pull out of a hat, no wand I can wave to find out who’s behind all this.”

“So we’re right back to just watching and waiting.”

“We know a little more now.  The local police will caution area clergy and their congregations to exercise caution.  Hopefully people will listen.”

“Still, that only buys us time.”

“They’re working toward something,” the Doctor said.  “The devotees of Quincunx—whatever we want to call them—they have an aim in mind, and it’s not a pretty one.”  He set down his mug.  “It learned.  The entity—it must’ve learned from the experience on Jahoo not to act too quickly.  That might explain why the violence here has been so random.”  The Doctor’s words tumbled out, disconcerting River with their enthusiasm.  She tried to tell herself it was solving the problem that excited him, not the violent and senseless death.  “On Jahoo, it moved too fast.  Here, it’s been biding its time, sowing fear and despair.  Once it has the population too cowed to act, it’ll make some grand, ugly gesture.”

“You said its followers have an aim—what is it?”

“They’re clearing the way for a new god,” the Doctor said, “in time-honored fashion.  By destroying every vestige of existing faiths and murdering their practitioners.”

“What about Lucille Cavanaugh?  She wasn’t a religious woman.  Why target her?”

“She was a scientist, though,” the Doctor said.  “She might’ve seen things that piqued her curiosity, and she was trained to put pieces together in a certain way.  She must’ve realized something was amiss, but she wouldn’t speak out because of what she perceived as a paranormal element.  So she left that cryptic message for Charlie, hoping to talk the situation over with him—someone rational and intelligent, someone who wouldn’t dismiss her worries out of hand.”

“What if it’s him?” River blurted.

“Who, Charlie?”  The Doctor sounded astonished.  “Charlie Holland?”

“How long has he lived in this community?  People like him and trust him—”

“No, no, no.  No, no, no, no, no.”  His expression hardened into obstinacy.  “I know Charlie.  If he was possessed, acting under the influence of an alien entity—I’d know.”

“Without reading him, how can you be sure?”

Voice rising on a note of indignation, the Doctor said, “Oh, so I should just walk up to him and say, ‘Charlie, if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll just probe your mind a bit and see if any nefarious extraterrestrials have taken up residence.’”

“It could be him, though.”

“It could be the boy who pours coffee in the college center!” the Doctor countered.  “It could be anyone, and they’re going to seem completely normal to everyone around them!”  He was angry, verging on hysterical.  “I won’t turn this into a witch hunt!”

“Well, what _are_ you going to do, then?” River demanded.

His face relaxed, and he offered her a semi-apologetic little smile.  Leaning over to kiss her forehead, he said, “A bit of unobtrusive surveillance,” he said, smile widening into a cocky grin.  “You up for it?”

She hopped to her feet.  “Let me find you some dry clothes.”

(v)

A knock on the door interrupted Cassie’s attempts at homework.  “It’s open,” she called.

Chelsea slipped inside.  She didn’t seem too happy.  “Look at the latest asshattery,” she said.

“Is ‘asshattery’ a real word, or did you make that up?”

Chelsea held out the latest edition of the campus newspaper.  “It’s a real word.  It refers to the activities of people who can best be described as ‘asshats.’”

For the first time in days, Cassie smiled, but the moment of humor faded when she looked at the headline.

“Oh, get real,” she said.  “Do people really believe atheists and secular humanists are waging some kind of bloody vendetta against true believers?  They’ll be burning witches before you know it.”

“This is New England—we don’t burn ‘em, we just crush ‘em to death under big piles of rocks,” Chelsea said.

“Oh, don’t be gross.”

“No, it’s true.  There was this one guy in Salem—”

Cassie held up her hands.  “I don’t wanna hear this.”

“There’s a campus-wide meeting in the auditorium tomorrow,” Chelsea said.  “To talk about the situation.  Mostly it’s gonna be campus security and Dr. Holland trying to convince us we really are safe.”

“While at the same time telling us to keep our doors and windows locked, and letting us know there’ll be increased foot patrols.”

Chelsea sat on Cassie’s bed.  “A few kids already withdrew.”

“I bet their parents made them.”

“Have yours said anything?” asked Chelsea.

“No, they just called to make sure I’m all right.  I’m so close to graduation—they’re not gonna make me leave now.”

“Are you?” asked Chelsea.  “All right?”

“No,” said Cassie miserably.  “I can’t sleep.  I’m having nightmares.  I’m counting the days ‘till spring break, so I can sleep in my own bed for a week.”

“I’m glad we’re up on the third floor,” Chelsea said.  “At least nobody can get in through the windows.”

“At least in theory.”  Cassie didn’t tell Chelsea about one recurring nightmare, in which an unspeakable evil in the guise of a raven or a crow came crashing through her dorm room window.

“So, who do you think is doing all this?” asked Chelsea.

“Some crazy person with a religious vendetta.  Some poor schmuck who probably was abused by uber-fundamentalist parents and went bonkers.  Like in a Stephen King novel.”

Chelsea laughed.  “In that case, they’d be just the opposite, targeting the non-believers.”

“The victims so far have been a Quaker, a Jew, and a bunch of pagans,” Cassie said.  “All women, too.  I’d bet money it’s a crazy woman-hating Christian.”

“But in the meditation garden, the statues of the Virgin Mary and St. Francis were wrecked,” Chelsea said.  “And every student religious organization’s office was trashed, all of them.”

“Okay, so it’s a nut-job Protestant,” Cassie said.  “God knows, this country has enough of ‘em.”

“Vermont’s so liberal and tolerant, though,” Chelsea protested.

“Usually, but it’s not a wacko-free zone.  It only takes one person to cause trouble.”

“It’s not just one person.  The footprints outside Crumpacker showed that two people dragged Debbie through the snow.”  At Cassie’s stricken expression, Chelsea said, “Sorry, sorry!”

“No, you’re right.  That’s even worse—more than one person.  Think of them, sitting around, plotting who to kill next.”  Cassie shuddered.

“What about your project?” asked Chelsea.  “Doesn’t it freak you out, being alone in the woods like that?”

“I only need to collect data for another few weeks,” Cassie said.  “There’s a girl in my seminar, Ronica Kenney, and we’re pairing up—I’ll go with her when she’s birdwatching, and then she’ll go with me the next day to look at the squirrels.  For the on-campus observations, it’s not a problem.”

“Good,” said Chelsea.  “I was gonna say I’d go with you if you needed someone.”

Cassie hopped up to give her friend a hug.  “Thanks,” she said.  “I appreciate that.”

“C’mon,” said Chelsea.  “Let’s go get supper.”

(vi)

A bright spot came a week later when Cassie received an acceptance letter from Tufts.  Barely able to contain her excitement, she skied back to the dorm at top speed and ran pell-mell up the stairs to the third floor.  Chelsea and Exa were both in their rooms, and they emerged at the sound of Cassie shrieking with happiness.

“Look—Tufts!”  With shaking hands, Cassie extracted the letter from its envelope and thrust it out for her friends to see.

“Ohmigod!” Chelsea squealed, and Exa thumped Cassie’s back.

“What next?” she asked.

“I have to go there for an interview,” Cassie said.  “I can pop up to Boston during spring break.”  Glancing at the time on her cellular, she said, “Maybe someone’s still in the admissions office.”  She dropped her things in her room, and with shaking hands thumbed the buttons on the small phone.

Twenty minutes later, she emerged from her room, feeling better than she had for months.

“It’s all set,” she said.  “I have an appointment on the Tuesday of spring break.”

“Sweet,” said Exa.  “Congratulations.  You worked your ass off for that.”

“My top choice.”  Cassie bounced on the balls of her feet.  “Ohmigod, I’m so psyched.  I can’t believe it.  I should call the ‘rentals and let them know.”

The best part, she thought, as she speed-dialed her parents’ number in New York, was knowing an escape lay ahead.  Any sentimental pangs Cassie had felt about leaving Ethan Allen had been utterly extinguished in the past few weeks.  Cassie thought with fierce longing of Tufts University’s veterinary school campus in suburban Boston, which seemed to her the very essence of a safe haven.  She wished she were there right now.

(vii)

The warning alarm on River’s wrist strap went off on a Sunday morning.  She’d been whisking eggs, and she set aside the dish to flip open her vortex manipulator.  Up popped an image of the town’s largest temple, the one with a tall, pointed aperture on its roof—a “steeple,” the Doctor called it.  One of the sensors they’d installed had been tripped.

“What is it?”  He emerged from the bathroom, toweling dry his hair.

“Suit up, Pretty Boy,” she said, switching off the stove and grabbing for her coat.  “There’s trouble in town.  A heat sensor just went off.”

(vii)

When they reached the village green, smoke was pouring out of the church roof.

“That place is two hundred years old—it’ll go up like a tinderbox!” the Doctor shouted, tearing down the road, River alongside him.  “Where is everyone?” he asked, head turning from side to side.  “Why haven’t they cleared the premises?”  He bolted up the front steps and grabbed the handle of the big, wooden door.

“Locked,” he grunted, pulling out the sonic screwdriver and holding it up to the lock.  Nothing happened.  “Deadlocked!”

From inside came a muffled thud and a loud, panicky shouting.

“They’re trapped!” River realized.

“Where’s the fire department?” the Doctor gasped.  “Someone should’ve called this in by now!”  A crowd of slack-jawed onlookers had begun to gather, pointing and staring.

“Don’t just stand there!” the Doctor bellowed.  “Someone, run for help, _now_!”

A couple of kids scurried away.

River assessed the structure: most of the windows, made of that funny colored glass,  were too narrow and too high off the ground to use safely as an escape route.

“There must be another way out!” she said.

“Windows!” the Doctor yelled.  “Around the back!”  They raced down the sidewalk, the burning building on their right.  River could hear the fire now, the roar of greedy flames, and she could smell the acrid smoke.

A large, modern structure had been built at the back of the church: here, the windows were bigger and lower to the ground.  River saw faces pressed against the glass, eyes huge, bulging with terror.

“They’re locked in!” she realized.

“Not for long!”  The Doctor aimed the sonic screwdriver at a nearby vehicle, and a compartment in the rear popped open.  He stuck his head inside and withdrew a long piece of metal.

“What’s that?” asked River.

“Tire iron!  For the windows!”  He opened a second vehicle and helped himself to another tool, which he handed to River.

He ran to one of the windows and gestured for people to stand back, then swung the tire iron right into the glass.  The window shattered, broken glass flying everywhere.  River did the same at a second window, and within moments, they’d cleared away all the jagged, broken edges.  They could hear the shrieking din of a fire alarm.  When River climbed inside, she saw to her horror that the room was full of small children, most of them crying and hysterical.

“Sunday school,” the Doctor said.  He addressed the older and calmer of the two adults.  “Who are you?”

“Leslie Moran,” she gasped.  “What’s going on?  We can’t open any of the doors!  They’re supposed to open automatically when the fire alarm goes off!”

“No time!” the Doctor said.  “Explanations later!  Leslie, I’m putting you in charge here—get everyone out through the windows!”

“There’s a nursery in the next room!” the second woman moaned.  “The connecting door’s locked and won’t open!  They’re all trapped!”

The Doctor slapped his tire iron into her hands.  “Break the window and get them out,” he ordered.

A dazed light came into her eyes, as if she’d only just realized it was within her power to save herself and the children.

“Right!” she said, and ran to climb out the window.  Leslie was already assisting the children, one by one, through the empty casement.

“River, come on!” the Doctor shouted.

She followed him down the nearest corridor.  The fire alarm was unbearably loud in here, a shrill, buzzing echo in her ears.  The end of the hallway was blocked by a pair of closed wooden doors.  The Doctor tried the handle, but the doors wouldn’t budge.

“We need to get people out before the roof collapses!” the Doctor said, flinging open doors at random along the length of the hallway.  “This is the effect the Mouth of Quincunx has on them—it’s sapping their courage and willpower, their ability to think clearly.  Ah-ha!”

“What?”

“Fire equipment!”  He hefted a large wooden tool with a metal head, a triangular wedge that had been sharpened on one side.  “Axe!  Come on!”

Back at the double doors, he began to swing the axe, face contorted with demented fury.  The wood started splintering beneath the blows, and as small holes opened up, wraith-like wisps of smoke curled through.

With an almighty explosive crack, the wood split down the middle, and three blows later, the entire locking mechanism fell out.  The Doctor and River threw themselves against the doors, which flew inward under their combined weight, stumbling into a smoke-filled foyer.  Through the sooty clouds, River could see the forms of people, doubled over and coughing.

“Everyone out!” the Doctor bellowed, striding through the crowds and grabbing people by the shoulders.  Steering them toward the doorway, he said, “Out, out, out—through the classroom windows!”

Choking and gasping, people obeyed him, responding to the unshakable authority in his voice.  River followed him into the main sanctum, where more people—too many—huddled, choking and moaning, too paralyzed even to drop to the floor, where the smoke was less dense.

“Everyone out!”

River dashed down the central aisle, yelling for people to evacuate.  They were slow, maddeningly slow, almost torpid in their movements, like climbers at high altitude with insufficient oxygen, but at least they began moving.

She found a young man in clerical robes huddled near the altar at the front, rocking himself back and forth.

“This won’t help anything!” she screamed at him.  “Get up!  Get moving!”

“We’re all going to die!”

She hauled back and smacked him hard across the face.  “Not if I have any say in it!  Now, help get people out of here!”

He seemed to come back to himself, blinking, as if awakening from a nightmare.

“Oh, God,” he whispered.  “Oh, God, what am I doing?”

The Doctor was yelling for River’s assistance: there were two elderly parishioners in wheelchairs, both nearly unconscious from smoke inhalation.

She barked at the clergyman, “You take that one, I’ll take this one!”

“All right!” he said.

The Doctor was rounding up the stragglers, herding them toward the exits.  “Those two first!” he insisted.

Staying doubled over low, River pushed the elderly woman toward the back of the building.  By now, she was desperate for fresh air, and her eyes were burning.  A few members of the congregation, having come to their senses, were guiding people out through the windows, assuring an orderly evacuation.  When they saw the old man and old woman, they ordered the crowd to part ranks, got the infirm pair to the windows, and helped eased them outside.

River covered her mouth with her scarf and fought her way back to the main sanctum.  From overhead, burning chunks of wood and hot cinders had begun to rain down.  She found the Doctor alone, at the dead center of the room, staring upward, frozen.

She stared up also, and what she saw made her blood turn to ice: the roaring red flames had assumed the shape of a grotesque face: a huge, yawning mouth, and above it, two fists; below it, two knees.  A searing red tongue of fire extended from the mouth, aiming for the immobilized Time Lord.

“No, you don’t!” River thundered, bounding to the Doctor’s side in three leaping strides.  She grabbed his arm and yanked him away; he stumbled, but then caught himself.  Keeping a firm grip on his arm, River steered him out of the sanctum, dodging burning debris, and they raced toward the back of the church.  Behind them, the roar of the fire mixed with the horrific alien bellow of a thwarted monster.

The final parishioners had just cleared the windows.  River pushed the Doctor ahead of her, and got him outside, then climbed through the casement into the blessedly cold, clear winter air.  They didn’t stop, scrambling up over a snowbank that was almost as high as the Doctor’s head, sliding on their backsides down into the street.  Coughing, they ran down the road toward the town common and safety.

The roof of the church collapsed then, heavy bells clanging as the steeple tower dropped into the main sanctum.  The entire structure was engulfed, crimson flames and black, sooty clouds belching toward the blue sky.

(viii)

River didn’t think she’d ever stop coughing.  Every breath hurt, like someone had kicked her repeatedly in the ribs.  Back at the chalet, she brewed a large pot of tea and finished cooking breakfast.  The Doctor, who’d fared better, set out dishes and utensils, then fussed about converting a few oranges into a liter of juice using River’s food processor.

Neither of them discussed the fire or the apparition they’d seen in the flames on the church ceiling.  As soon as the tea brewed, River poured herself a large mug and dosed it with lemon.  When the eggs were cooked and the bread toasted, she and the Doctor sat down to eat, not saying anything, save a few perfunctory remarks about the food.

After ascertaining nobody was hurt, the pair had slipped away from the scene to avoid awkward questions.  Judging by murmurs in the crowd, River gathered that the town’s firefighting equipment had been disabled, and by the time a truck got to the scene, the building was already lost.

“They planned this,” River said.  “The biggest church with the biggest congregation.  They disabled the firefighting equipment.  Then they locked people in and torched the place.”

The Doctor said, “I’ll bet they had the roof rigged in advance and detonated the materials remotely.  It might even have been set up weeks ago, waiting for the right moment to strike.”

“We’re lucky nobody was killed.  It was horrible, the way people were so passive, like their willpower had been leached right out of them.”

“That’s what the Mouth of Quincunx does.  It’ll wait, then it’ll strike again, and the damage will be even greater.  We need to be ready.”  The Doctor looked haunted, fearful.  “It knows I’m here.  It knows who I am.”

“You’re the only one who has even a chance of stopping it,” River realized.  “It’ll try to take you out first, before it strikes again.”

“Not if it doesn’t catch me, it won’t.”

“It almost had you.”  River couldn’t suppress a shudder.

“Almost doesn’t count.”

“So, why doesn’t it strike more directly?” she asked.  “Why just appear as a face in the fire?”

“It’s not at full strength,” the Doctor said.

“Could you tell that?”

“I was trying to look into it, to read it,” he admitted.  When he poured himself a small glass of juice, River didn’t miss the slight tremor in his hands.  “Bit foolish of me.  Weeelll, maybe more than a bit foolish.  Somewhat slightly foolish.  Weeelll, maybe more than slightly.”

“Doctor,” River said, “has anyone ever told you that you can be an ass sometimes?”

“Frequently.”

“Why’d you ever try to do that?” she shouted.  Her lungs weren’t up for shouting, and River broke into that maddening, raspy cough.

“Here.”  He poured her more tea.  “I tried to read it because sometimes you have to get close to your enemies to learn what they’re up to.”

River washed her throat before she tried talking again.  “That was stupid.  It could’ve killed you!”  Despite her worry and her anger at him, she asked, “Did you learn anything?”

“It’s weak,” the Doctor stated.  “I think its power at the moment is mostly confined to controlling people.  It needs minions, other beings, as its arms and legs.  It’s getting stronger, though.”

“Feeding off those deaths?  Can it consume people’s life energy?”

“Maybe,” he said.  “I had the sense it’s feeding off their fear.”

“Which is why it’s waging this campaign of slowly escalating terror,” River realized.  “The more frightened people get, the more powerful it becomes.”

“Right.”

“And we weren’t afraid of it, so we weren’t affected.  Or, we weren’t affected as badly.  And when we gave people a reason to hope, they broke out of its sway.”

“Exactly.”

“Did you find out why it’s here?  What it wants?”

“It wants to establish itself as a new god on Earth,” he stated.  “Anyone who doesn’t worship it will be destroyed.  If it fell through to Jahoo from another dimension or planet, there’s no telling where it came from, but it must’ve been a powerful entity, worshipped in its homeworld.  Maybe its home was destroyed.  Or it might’ve been exiled.  The Jahoovians had the knowledge to recognize its bad influence and the technology to keep it shielded.  People on Earth don’t have those advantages.”

“So, what’ll we do when we find the relic?”

“Destroy it,” he said.  “For good.  Pulverize it, and shoot the dust out into a black hole.”

“I’ll be more than happy to grind it up myself,” she said.  “Then I’m going to go back to Jahoo and throttle their president.”

(ix)

February turned into March, with little perceptible difference, save the somewhat longer hours of daylight.  A long shadow of fear lingered over the town and the college campus.  People scurried about their business by day and barricaded themselves in their homes by night.  Police cautioned everyone not to go anywhere alone and to take no unnecessary risks.  Many places of worship suspended services indefinitely.

River spent every available waking hour with the Doctor, scouring the campus and town, searching for the artifact and watching people for signs of suspicious behavior.  The latter proved particularly fruitless: anyone whose mind was under control of an alien entity wouldn’t show it on the surface.  In fact, the Doctor said, the entity would lie dormant, deep in its victim’s mind, only manifesting itself when it needed its minions to act.  The people in question would have no recollection of anything they’d done while the entity was in control.

By the time spring break arrived, most students and faculty were desperate to get away for a week.  Those who could manage it departed on Thursday, ahead of a predicted snowstorm, lending a deserted feeling to campus.  River had planned to use the time and people’s absence to do some more searching.

She’d just wrapped up her day’s work in her office Thursday evening when the phone on her desk bleeped.  She smiled, seeing that the ID screen had lit up with the name, “Smith, John.”

“Hello, lover,” she said.

“Meet me at the TARDIS, as soon as you can,” he said.  “Jack has something for us.”

(x)

They met up at his faculty apartment.  River followed the Doctor down to the basement and into the ship, where he went straight to the computer monitor.  He flicked a few switches, and Jack’s face popped up on the screen.  He appeared to be in some kind of laboratory.  River scanned the room behind him with interest: brick walls, no windows, an abundance of scientific and technical equipment.

“That’s better,” said Jack.  “We need to be face-to-face for this.”

A voice off-camera snarked, “Oh, you make that sound so dirty.”

“What do you have?” the Doctor asked.

“I told you I’d heard of the Mouth of Quincunx,” Jack said.  “And here’s the guy who mentioned it.”  He reached out an arm and hauled into frame a thin, whey-faced man with prominent facial bones and a shifty expression.  His bleached-blond hair showed a lot of dark at the roots, and he wore some kind of mock-military uniform.  He didn’t look happy to be there, and River wouldn’t have trusted him as far as she could spit.

“Ooh, so _you’re_ the infamous Doctor,” the man leered.

“Behave yourself,” Jack ordered.  “That’s the guy who takes out entire Dalek fleets single-handedly, so show a little respect.”

The man fell silent.

“Doctor, may I introduce Captain John Hart, a former colleague of mine in the Time Agency?  Emphasis on _former_ , by the way.”

“Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart,” the newcomer jeered.

“John, this is the Doctor and Professor Shira Nahar.”

“Hell-o!” John purred, ogling River.

“Is he for real?” she asked.  She made a mental note to kick the Doctor for not telling her Jack was also a Time Agent.

“You’ll never know,” said Hart.

“Yes, and let’s keep it that way,” River said.

“As it happens, John owes me a little favor.”  Jack grinned like a fiend.  “In exchange for bailing him out of a tight jam today, he’s gonna spill everything he knows about the Mouth of Quincunx.”

River folded her arms.  “How reliable is he?”

“When he tells the truth—which isn’t often—very.”

“All right, then.”  The Doctor addressed Hart.  “What do you know?”

The man squirmed, but he said, “The Mouth of Quincunx is bad news.  Really bad news.  It’s a prison for Buthos of Hallux.”

The name meant nothing to River, but the Doctor had gone white.

“You’ve heard of him, then?” asked Hart.

“Heard of him?”  The Doctor barked a short, harsh laugh.  “I _destroyed_ him.  On Hallux, about three hundred years ago.”

“You didn’t kill him as much as you thought you did.”  Hart chuckled without mirth.  “Something survived—consciousness, essence, call it what you will.  He wasn’t dead, but he was too weak to fight, and his enemies on Hallux trapped him in a dimensional pocket, contained in a stone artifact.  The Mouth of Quincunx.”

“It was discovered on Jahoo, fifteen centuries ago,” River said.

“Hallux was hit by an asteroid fifteen centuries ago,” John said.  “Life on the planet was obliterated.  Loads of rift activity.  The artifact must’ve slipped through a weak spot in the space-time continuum, and hey presto!  It lands on Jahoo.”

“It has a bad influence on people’s minds,” River said.  “It may’ve taken over some people locally, inciting them to violence.”

“Old Buthos is gaining his strength back, then,” Hart speculated.  “Looking to bust out of that prison.  Well, good luck dealing with him.”  The Time Agent’s voice grew breezy.  “In the meantime, I’m out of here.  If you don’t mind my saying so, you’re all pretty well fucked.”

“Doctor, do you need any help?” asked Jack.

“No, I need you to stay in Cardiff and guard the rift,” said the Doctor.  “Make sure it stays closed.  We don’t need Buthus escaping through to another time or place.”

“Consider it done.  Good luck.”

The screen went blank.

“Doctor,” asked River uneasily, “Who, or what, was Buthus?”

He leaned against the console, eyes very dark.  “It was three hundred years ago,” he said.  “I was in another body—my sixth.  It was an angry time for me.  My own people, the Time Lords, had hauled me in for a long trial for crimes I didn’t commit.  They tried to make me believe one of my companions had died a gruesome death because of my actions.”  He straightened up and began to pace around the console.  “By the end of it, I was questioning my own sanity.  When I was finally acquitted, I left Gallifrey in a black rage.”

“Did you go to Hallux?”

“It was a side trip.  I was traveling with a woman named Melanie, and she wanted to see the museum on Vearsheers Minor.”

“That’s good for a week, at least,” River chuckled.

“She wandered off into the gallery on intergalactic fashion, and I went back to the TARDIS.  I just wanted to go someplace by myself, and I chose some coordinates at random.  I landed on Hallux.  The planet was in absolute turmoil.  I fell in with a rebellious faction that was fighting the royal army.  The High Empress was under the control of Buthus, and the only way to save the people of Hallux was to destroy him.  He was an ancient, powerful being—one of the Quinquestriatus race; they went extinct, but he must’ve been the last survivor.  We did battle.  All the rage I felt against the Time Lords, all that burning resentment, I unleashed on Buthus.  Since I was a Time Lord, he couldn’t mind-control me the way he could the others.  I pretended to be injured, so I could trick him into chasing me.  I led him into the main reactor of the planet’s nuclear storm drive—so massive that it could power the entire planet.”

River couldn’t stop staring at him.  “He fell for this?”

“He thought he could squash me,” the Doctor said.  “He was absolutely sure of that.  I initiated a lockdown of the plant and escaped through an emergency hatch that Buthus was too big to go through.  He lost time trying to double back and was trapped inside.  Then I used the external controls to rev the storm drive to maximum output.”

“He must’ve been incinerated.”

The Doctor stared down at his feet.  “I stood there for nearly an hour, listening to him scream.  I didn’t return the energy output to normal ‘till I hadn’t heard anything for another hour.  By then, the royal army wasn’t under his control any more, and order had been restored.  I went back to Vearsheers Minor, got to the museum about fifteen minutes after I’d left.  I caught up with Mel in the costume gallery, and we went out for dessert.  We had profiteroles.  They were delicious.  Mel used to lecture me about my weight.”  He sagged back against a support post.  “I was so full of rage, then.”

“And now that Buthus knows you’re here, he’ll want to rip you into a million pieces.”

“Yeah,” said the Doctor.  “I know.”

(xi)

They were quiet after that, listening to the musical hum of the time machine.  River thought how easy it would be for the Doctor to go away, to escape this bleak situation.  But he wouldn’t do that—having stumbled across this impending catastrophe, he’d set the matter right, or die trying.

To distract herself, River asked, “Where was Jack speaking to you from?  I couldn’t tell if it was a lab or a military bunker.”

“It’s both,” the Doctor said, breaking out of his gloom.  “That’s the Hub—it’s the headquarters of Torchwood 3, in Cardiff. Wales.”

“What’s Torchwood?”

“An organization that investigates and catalogues alien activity on Earth,” he said, looking abstract.  Hands in pockets, he said, “There was a branch in London, but I shut them down.”

“Why?”

Expression lofty, he said, “I had my reasons.”

“You don’t think it’s good for people here to be curious about life on other worlds?”

“Not when they’re hoarding alien technology and using it for the greater glory of the new British Empire, no.”

“But you don’t mind Jack running his own version of the same?”

“He’s not an imperialist,” the Doctor said.  “I’m not mad about the idea, but Jack and his team put their lives on the line to keep the British people safe from harm at alien hands—and when they can, to protect alien visitors from human xenophobia.”

“Why Cardiff?” asked River.  “Why not London—isn’t that the major city in that region?”

“Cardiff tends to attract a lot of alien attention because there’s a big space-time rift that runs right through the city.  Things fall through from other worlds and dimensions and time streams—like the Mouth of Quincunx fell through to here.”

“If the rift is that big, doesn’t it cause disturbance?  People would feel that; even without consciously realizing it, they’d be affected.”

“Aah, that’s the clever bit,” the Doctor said.  “There’s a waterfall that runs down into the Hub—it creates a dampening effect, so people don’t notice…”  He trailed off, then his whole frame jolted, his face lighting up with pure jubilation.  “River, you’re a genius!”

“What?” she laughed.  “What’d I do?”

“Oh, you’re brilliant!”  He grabbed her hand and they sprinted from the TARDIS, up the steps to the apartment, and outside to the street.  “ _Water!_   Why didn’t I think of that?  I’m thick, River—thick and old!  I can’t see what’s right in front of my face anymore!”

“You’re daft,” River told him, pulling her coat more closely around her neck.  They ran through the thickening snow storm to the center of town.

(xii)

“Closed due to weather,” the Doctor read from a sign on the door.  “Since when?”  A blue flash of the sonic screwdriver, and the restaurant door opened.

Inside, all lay in darkness, silent, save the quiet burble of running water.

“Shh,” the Doctor said.  Leaving the door ajar to allow in light from a street lamp, he and River made their way a few feet inside.  She stared at the wishing well, thinking of all the times they’d eaten here, all the times they’d passed this innocuous piece of ornamentation without even looking at it.  A small sign on the wall said that money tossed into the fountain would be collected and given to a local shelter for homeless animals.

The Doctor waved the sonic screwdriver at the wishing well, and with an electronic click, the water stopped flowing.  The water came up through a spigot in the center of the basin, flowing out over a bright copper cylinder.  The copper had been impressed with the images of playful dogs.

With care, the Doctor reached into the basin and lifted the copper sheath, removing it from the well.

“Damnation,” River swore.  Beside the spigot squatted the Mouth of Quincunx, even more ugly than it had appeared in the hologram.  “What do we do now?”

The Doctor lifted the artifact, wrapping it in his long scarf.  “Black hole,” he said, sounding grim and satisfied.  “Just as we planned.”

A male voice came out of the shadows.  “Oh, I think not.”  River heard the sound of snapping fingers, followed by a rushing sense of disembodiment, and the feeling that she had no control over anything she said or did.  “Professor Nahar, stop him.”

River swung her arm and clocked the Doctor in the temple so hard that he was unconscious before he hit the floor.  She grabbed the precious artifact from his hands, lest it smash on the ceramic tiles underfoot.  A dim corner of her mind recognized the evil of her actions, but she was powerless to stop herself.

“What should we do with him now?” she asked.

Tomasso emerged from the darkness, his face queer and blank.  He took the artifact from River’s hands.  She saw several figures waiting behind him, their expressions identical, masklike.

“Bring him below,” Tomasso ordered.  “Our lord Buthus awaits.”

**To be continued…**


	8. Angels of the Silences--Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

_A Murder of One_

Cassie returned to Grover Hall, stomping her way through the fresh powder; the facilities crew hadn’t yet cleared the walkways.  Inside, the overhead lights hummed, emphasizing the absence of ordinary dorm noises: voices, music, footsteps, slamming doors.

_Am I the only one here?_ she wondered, hauling herself up to the third floor.  The empty dorm only worsened her mood.  Under other circumstances, Cassie would have left campus today, but her immunology instructor not only had refused to cancel class, but had scheduled the midterm exam for Friday morning.  Instead of fleeing south on a bus, Cassie had spent the afternoon in the science library, studying.

Upstairs, a toilet flushed, making Cassie feel at least a little less isolated.  As she approached her own room, she heard a muffled noise of distress.  Was someone crying?  Cassie followed the sound to Chelsea’s room.

“Chel?”  She rapped on the door frame.

“Go away.”

“Chelsea?”  Cassie pushed open the door.  Inside, Chelsea sat at her desk, surrounded by a sea of paper, her hands covered with smears of charcoal and pastels.

“Don’t look at them!  They’re horrible!”

“Chel, what’s wrong?”

“I can’t stop it!”

“Stop what?”  Cassie glanced down, and her heart gave a painful lurch.  “Oh God, Chelsea.”  She picked up a piece of paper.  The image depicted something straight out of Hieronymus Bosch: a hellish scene of people lying dead, everything around them decimated.

“They won’t stop coming—the pictures—it’s all I can draw.”

“When’d this start?” asked Cassie.

“This morning.”

“Jesus.”  Cassie looked at the pictures, every one a violent, dark image of apocalypse and destruction.  “Who’s this figure in all of them?”

“I don’t know,” Chelsea whispered.

In each sketch Chelsea had drawn, an enormous, horrific being loomed over everything, always in silhouette, so that its features could not be discerned.  Nevertheless, Cassie couldn’t fight an irrational fear that this being somehow had the power to _see_ her, even though it was only a two-dimensional image in a drawing.

“Come on,” she told Chelsea, trying to keep her voice steady.  “Let’s go downstairs and burn them in the fireplace.”

“That won’t stop him,” Chelsea said in a dull monotone.  “Nothing can stop him now.”  Her expression was blank, eyes glassy and unfocused.  Voice sepulchral, she said, “He’ll feed on the blood of the one who destroyed him and be restored.”

“Chelsea!”  Cassie smacked her friend across the face, distressed by this macabre pronouncement.  The other girl leaped back to awareness with a violent start.

“Cassie?  Cassie?  Ohmigod, what’s wrong with me?”

Cassie began gathering up her friend’s artwork—if it could be called that—though she could barely bring herself to touch the vile things.  Then she saw something that froze the breath in her lungs: an image of Dr. Smith, lying in a vast pool of blood.  His head was thrown back, his chest ripped open, a red pulp of mangled flesh and broken ribs.  A black shadow darkened his body, that same figure, looming over the corpse.  In the background, an inferno roared.

“What—why—?”   Cassie thrust the sketch at Chelsea, who sobbed and cowed.  _“How could you do this?”_ Cassie shrieked.

“Hey, what’s going on?”  Exa appeared, looking like an angel in her trim ski jacket.  She stared at the collection of demonic images.  “Chelsea, what the fuck is all this nihilistic goth shit?”

“Something’s wrong with her,” Cassie said.  “Look at this.”

“Jesus Christ!” Exa said, gawking at the picture.  “That’s Professor Hotpants, isn’t it?  Chel, you sick bitch!”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” Chelsea sobbed.  “It’s all I can draw!  It’s like something’s taking me over!”

“Right, we need to get her to the health center, stat, so she can talk to a shrink.”

“I feel like I need an exorcism,” Chelsea moaned.

“Stress,” Exa pronounced.  “You’re cracking up.  C’mon, wash your hands and get your coat.”

At that moment, Cassie felt something, almost as if there had been a rumble of thunder with no sound.

“What the fuck?” Exa grunted.

Chelsea cried out, clutching her head.  “He’s here!” she sobbed.  “He’s risen, and nothing can stop him!”

“Ohmigod, Exa, did you _feel_ that?” asked Cassie.

“Yeah.  Get your coats, both of you.”

“What are we gonna do?” asked Chelsea, eyes wide.

Exa said, “Whatever it is, we’re gonna stop it.”

(ii)

“Are you crazy?” Chelsea whispered.

“Oh, probably,” Cassie muttered.  She and Exa managed to get the heavy urn moved.  Cassie scooted down to lift a loose paving stone, which the urn had covered.

“Why’s there a key here?” asked Chelsea.

“Because the dean of the chapel has a terrible memory, and he’s always locking himself out.”  Cassie grabbed the spare key.  “Debbie Katz showed me this when I was a freshman.”

“Aren’t we wasting time?” Chelsea quavered.

“Not at all.”  Cassie unlocked the chapel’s side door.  Exa had brought a flashlight, and they crept inside.  Before leaving the dorm, they’d gone from floor to floor, raiding the firefighting equipment; now, each girl was armed with a heavy axe.  In the chapel, Cassie was seeking a different kind of weapon.

“Please, please, please,” she muttered under her breath, raising the lid of the baptismal font.  “Yes!  Exa—give me the bottles.”

“Will this really work?” asked Chelsea.

“Hey, it’s good enough for Buffy; it’s good enough for me.”  Cassie used a large pipette to draw up a hundred milliliters of water from the font, transferring it to one of the bottles.  The process took a few minutes, but it gave each of them a plastic bottle full of the precious liquid.

“Right,” Cassie said, leaving the pipette in the nearly empty font; let the custodial staff figure out this one.  “Come on.”

Water bottles in their pockets and axes in hand, they left the chapel and headed out into the blizzard.  The snow fell with peculiar intensity, the snowflakes like tiny shards of glass.  All three girls drew up their hoods against the gale.

“Where now?” asked Exa.

“We follow our noses.  Chel, where’s that disturbance coming from?”

“ _What?_ ” Chelsea squeaked.

“Hey, you were the one having visions,” Cassie said.  “Just think about it for a minute.”

“Yeah, use your spider-sense,” Exa cracked.

Chelsea glared at her friend but stood for a moment, eyes closed.  Then she turned and pointed.  “That way.”

“Toward town?” Cassie asked.

“Yeah.”

Hefting her axe, Cassie said, “Let’s go.”

(iii)

In the basement beneath the restaurant, the sacrificial chamber had been prepared.  A butcher’s table served as the altar—so very appropriate.  People just didn’t appreciate the importance of ritual, the symbolism of gestures like this.  On a pedestal overlooking the altar sat the Mouth of Quincunx, as if watching the proceedings.

Tomasso had insisted the chamber be lit by black candles, and the fitful illumination they cast created a perfect atmosphere.  Cold, bleak, dark—yes, all these were things Buthus found good.

River paused for a moment to caress their victim’s face.  The alien been stripped to the waist before they’d tied it to the altar, its left arm extended along a wooden block.  River couldn’t wait to watch its blood flow.  Buthus would feed and grow stronger, breaking out of his dimensional prison at last.  Then he would clear the scourge from this planet, the pestilence of human filth, and the new race of Quinquestriatus would arise.

Others moved about the chamber, in the same torpid state as River.  Among them was Anna Holland.  Like River, they had paid unwitting tribute to Buthus, and now they were his servants.

On the altar, the alien began to stir, coming to full awareness when it realized it was restrained.  Its eyes searched the chamber, growing wide.

“Hello, lover,” River greeted, stroking its neck, where the pulse of life throbbed.

“River?” it said, staring up at her, uncomprehending.  “What are you doing?”

“Preparing you for Lord Buthus.”  She laughed at his expression.  “I put coins in his fountain.  Now, I’m his.”

“No, you’re not,” it said, fighting against the ropes.  “River—I know you’re in there somewhere—listen to me!  You can fight this!  You can—”

“Hush,” she chided, clamping shut its mouth.  Anna nodded, and River said, “The hour is at hand.  Lord Buthus will have his revenge.  Don’t worry, love,” she laughed.  “You’ll only be in agony for an hour or two.”

Tomasso picked up one of the long knives, his eyes aglitter.  The instrument had been sharpened to a wicked edge.  River watched, breathless, as he drew the blade across the inside of the alien’s arm.

(iv)

“So, what exactly are we looking for?” asked Exa.

“Dr. Smith,” Cassie told her.  “He’s in danger—I know he must be.”

“How?”

“Because of what Chelsea drew—”

“Shh!” Chelsea admonished.  “Get over here!”

The three girls pressed close to the side of a furniture store, Chelsea peering around the corner and into the street.

“What?” hissed Exa.

“There’s a bunch of people, just over there.” Chelsea counted.  “There’s maybe eight of them.”

“By the restaurant?  Tomasso’s?” Cassie asked.

Chelsea nodded.  “The lights are out.  I think it’s closed.”

“What’re they doing?” Exa murmured.

“Nothing.  They’re just standing around.  I don’t like the way they look.” Chelsea shuddered.  “I think they’re possessed.”

That sounded crazy, but Cassie asked herself why six or eight people would be hanging out at a closed restaurant in a storm like this.  A quick look around Chelsea’s shoulder confirmed the people’s aimless posture and blank expressions.

“Bunch of frigging zombies,” she pronounced.  “We have to get into that restaurant.”

“No!” Chelsea hissed, looking terribly afraid.

“Is that where it is?” asked Cassie.  “Where the disturbance is coming from?”

Chelsea nodded, face taut with fear.

“That’s where Dr. Smith will be.”  Cassie tightened her grip on the axe.  “Come on.”

As soon as the three girls emerged into the street, the people outside the restaurant turned to face them.  None of the people wore coats, hats, or gloves to protect them from the elements, and they seemed oblivious to their own well-being.

“Get the hell away from there!” Cassie yelled, raising her ax.

“Cassie, look out!” Exa shouted.  A man wielding a hunting crossbow had taken aim.  Cassie swerved to one side, and the arrow flew past her.  Exa was on him the next moment, swinging the handle of her axe.  It struck the man in the temple, and he fell down, unconscious.

Chelsea had uncapped bottle of holy water, and she splashed some of it in the face of a woman who was rushing at her.  The woman screamed, clutching at her eyes and staggering away.

“Hey, it really works!” Exa said.

“Don’t use it all at once,” Cassie cautioned.  She counted the remaining zombie-guards: five of them, three men, two women.  Not the greatest odds.

“Get lost!” Exa yelled.

A middle-aged woman whipped a knife end over end; Exa dodged and roared forward.  They skirmished, and the woman went down hard.  The biggest of the men had targeted Cassie: he wasn’t armed, but he didn’t need to be.  She drove the axe butt-first into his stomach, and he doubled over, grunting.  Cassie hated to hurt him seriously, but Dr. Smith’s life was at stake.  She brought down the axe handle on the back of the man’s head.

Now it was one-on-one. Chelsea employed more holy water, while Cassie and Exa followed with the axes.  Less than a minute later, the guards all lay unconscious in the street.

“Get their weapons,” Cassie ordered.  She grabbed the hunting crossbow and a quiver of arrows from the man who’d tried to shoot her.  “Pat them down and make sure they’re not carrying guns.”

“Woah, Cassie Sterlin, action girl,” Exa joked.  “Emma Peel has nothing on you.”

“Exa, look out!” Chelsea screamed.

A man with a hunting knife had slipped up behind Exa, and she spun around to face him just in time.  “Buthus will feed on your unclean blood!” he snarled.

“Fuck that!” Exa responded, driving her knee into his groin.  He doubled over, and she punched his temple.  He toppled into the snow with a plop, lying motionless.

“Who’s action girl now?” Cassie smirked.  “You’re loving this.  Get his knife.”

“Now what?” asked Chelsea.

“I need you two to stay out here and guard the door,” Cassie said, hefting the crossbow.  “I’m going inside, after Dr. Smith.”

“It’s not safe to go in yourself!” Chelsea said.

“No, it’d be worse if the three of us go tramping in, without anyone to cover the rear,” Cassie said.

“What’d he say, ‘Boofus?’” asked Exa.

“Buthus,” Cassie said grimly.  “Sounds like the name of a demon to me.  Exa, give me your holy water.”

Exa still had a full bottle, and she swapped hers for Cassie’s.

“Be careful,” Chelsea admonished.

“Yeah, no shit,” Exa agreed.

In the doorway of the restaurant, Cassie cast the beam of the flashlight around, but she didn’t see anyone.  Strange how this place had always seemed so cozy and friendly to her, full of the smells of wonderful food cooking.  Now it stank of fear and despair.

She thought she heard faint noises and stood with her ears trained, listening.  Moving with as much stealth as possible, she made her way through the swinging doors into the kitchen.  The noises were louder: muttering voices that sounded like chanting.  A sudden high-pitched scream made Cassie’s heart, already thumping, slam into her ribs: that had to be Dr. Smith.

Light from an open trap door flickered in the room, very faint.  Beside the open door stood the slim figure of a young woman—Cassie didn’t know her name, but she was Tomasso’s daughter.

The racket from below provided cover, and Cassie took advantage of it without hesitation.  She sprang over to Tomasso’s daughter, clamping one hand over the girl’s mouth and pressing another across her neck.  The girl fought like a tiger, and they fell to the floor together.  Cassie knew this was one skirmish she couldn’t afford to lose, and she threw all her strength against Tomasso’s daughter, rolling over and pinning her, keeping her fingers pressed tightly on the girl’s neck.  After a few moments, the girl’s body went limp: Cassie had shut off the blood flow to her brain, rendering her unconscious.

Cassie stood up, grabbing the crossbow again, checking to make sure the weapon was undamaged.  _Thank God for all those years at summer camp_ , she thought, pulling the string taut and loading an arrow into the stock.  _Not to mention a few sessions of Model Mugging_.

A rumbling noise from below made her gasp out loud: was that a _voice_?

“Oh, yes, feed now, my lord!” a woman’s voice sang out.

_That sounds like Shira Nahar_ , Cassie thought.  _What the hell is **she** doing here?_   A moment later, Dr. Smith started screaming again, a ghastly cry of pure agony that made Cassie think of an animal being tortured to death.  There was an inarticulate rumbling bellow, and the even more horrible sound of people laughing.

Cassie uncapped her bottle of holy water; holding the bottle in her left hand and the crossbow in her right, she descended the steps into the basement.

(v)

In the chamber, Buthus continued to grow stronger.

A thread of red flame flicked out from the Mouth of Quincunx, snaking through the air and wrapping itself around the alien’s arm.  Blood from the gash marks flowed up the cord, into the Mouth of Quincunx, which glowed as Buthus fed.

The alien lay glassy-eyed, its struggles growing more feeble.  It screamed when Tomasso, impatient to see their lord’s return to full strength, used his knife to open another vein.

“Patience.”  River put a hand on Tomasso’s arm.  “It mustn’t die too soon.”

They all watched, rapt, heads turning from the alien to the Mouth of Quincunx and back again.  Inside the Mouth of Quincunx, the growling and rumbling continued.

“Just a bit more,” Tommaso murmured.  “You’re almost strong enough, Lord.”

A loud bellow shook the floor.  “He’s here; he’s with us now!” Anna cried.

From the Mouth of Quincunx emerged a wet red blob, pulsating and glowing, translucent, traveling along the flaming cord.  River held her breath: she now knew Tomasso had tried this before with the female scientist, but she’d been too old, too feeble, her human blood too weak to sustain Buthus, and so he’d been unable to escape the prison, a maddening setback.  Now there would be no such failure.

Within the sphere, River could see the form of Buthus: small, helpless, but growing ever stronger.  The sphere rolled along the flaming life-line, and only when it reached the alien’s arm did Buthus emerge.  River knew this was the most critical point, Buthus at his most vulnerable, and she held the alien’s head immobile in her arms.

Buthus sank his teeth, small and razor-sharp, into the flesh at the crook of the alien’s arm.  The alien screamed and screamed, eyes rolling in agony.  With a greedy, wet sucking noise, Buthus fed.  Immediately, his corporeal form grew larger, stronger.  River laughed, exultant, encouraging Buthus to feed, and the others laughed also.  When Buthus had drained the alien utterly, he would possess all its innate power and intelligence, including its ability to regenerate into new forms.  Buthus would be invincible.

As Buthus grew larger, his long arms emerged, the digits tipped with ivory claws.  When he achieved his full strength, those claws would be over a foot long.  Buthus drove the white daggers into the alien’s flesh, spearing it at the shoulder and wrist.  River watched: in another few minutes, the arm would be too mangled to use, and Buthus would open the alien’s neck.

(vi)

The scene revolted Cassie, even though she’d known at the back of her mind that something like this must be happening.  She didn’t know what sickened her more: the sight of Dr. Smith being sliced open, or the blank-faced zombies watching it happen, laughing.  They somehow managed to laugh without moving any facial muscles, a mockery of ordinary human mirth.  Crouched on the cellar steps, she assessed the situation: a long trail of fire led from the Mouth of Quincunx to Dr. Smith.  Some grotesque creature in a fiery red, wet-looking sphere had attached itself to Dr. Smith’s arm, like a monstrous fetus in a repulsive sac of amniotic fluid.  Cassie realized the thing was drinking Dr. Smith’s blood.  _Disgusting!_   And as it fed, it grew bigger.  Cassie stared at it, too immobilized by fear to act.  This was the figure from Chelsea’s artwork, the monstrous entity that if turned loose would ravage the Earth, making humanity its food or its slaves.

That thought put wild courage into her limbs.  Cassie rose to her feet, pointing the crossbow straight ahead.  She didn’t need to worry about her aim: she’d always been an excellent shot.

They arrow sailed straight and true through the air, knocking the Mouth of Quincunx off its pedestal.  The artifact hit the concrete floor and shattered into fragments, the loveliest sound Cassie had ever heard in her life.

The cord of fire sputtered, then was reduced to sparks, like dying fireworks.  The people around the table blinked, awareness flooding into their faces, staring at each other, dazed, as if wondering how they’d gotten there, wondering what they were doing.

Shira Nahar let out a wail of anguish, staring down at Dr. Smith.  The grotesque demonic being was still attached to his arm, feeding and growing.

“As Exa would say, ‘fuck this!’”  Cassie leapt off the stairs, snapping her left hand.  An arc of holy water cascaded out of the bottle, splashing onto the demon.  It let go of Dr. Smith, throwing back its head and screeching a long note of frustrated evil.  It stood about four feet tall; Cassie would have hated to see it at full size.  She bolted over and dumped the rest of the holy water on top of it.

Its protective placenta dissolved away.  Cassie grabbed the nearest knife and jabbed, spearing the thing through an eye.  It staggered back, screaming.  Cassie barely dodged its stiletto-like talons.

Shira was using another knife to slice through the ropes that held Dr. Smith tied to the table.  He sat up, faster than Cassie would have thought possible for someone who’d lost so much blood.

“Get out!” he told them, voice a harsh rasp.

Gasping through her tears, Shira told him, “No—you’re hurt—”

He wouldn’t hear any of it.  His eyes were black, full of rage.  “Run, all of you, run!”

“But what about—?” Cassie asked.

“I’ll deal with it.”  Dr. Smith lunged for the wounded monster, grabbing it by the throat with his right hand and hoisting it up.  He threw the creature into a wall, and then, holding it pinned with one knee, drove his fingertips into the sides of its head.

“What’s he _doing?_ ” Cassie shrieked.  She watched, horrified, as that same pulsating red light began to glow its way along Dr. Smith’s arms.

“The same thing it tried to do to him—he’s draining it.  Come on.”  Shira grabbed a bundle of fabric that lay nearby: Dr. Smith’s clothes, Cassie realized.  “Come _on_!” the technician shouted, prodding Cassie ahead of her.  “He can only do this on his own!”

They heard the demon’s frustrated bellows: it was fighting, but Dr. Smith had too firm a hold on it.  The last thing Cassie saw as she ran up the cellar steps was Dr. Smith wrestling with the beast on the cellar floor.  The ground had begun shaking.

Outside the restaurant, a frantic Chelsea and Exa greeted Cassie.

“Ohmigod, what’s going on?” Chelsea screamed.

“Get away from the building!” ordered Shira.

“What happened?” Cassie asked her friends.

“Well, all the people out here woke up, and it’s like they weren’t possessed any more, so they just ran off,” Chelsea babbled.

“And then more people ran out of the restaurant—Tomasso and his daughter and Dr. Holland’s wife—what the _hell_ is up with that?” asked Exa.  “Where’s Professor Hotpants?”

“Inside,” said Cassie.  “He’s fighting with it.”

They huddled across the street, waiting.  A few moments later, Dr. Smith emerged, staggering but still upright, limbs flailing in spastic convulsions.

“What’s wrong with him?” Chelsea whispered.

“He’s drawn Buthus into himself,” Shira responded.

As they stood watching, Dr. Smith’s whole body arched, and he flung his arms up toward the night sky.  A current of power seemed to pass through him, then an arc of red fire roared out of his hands, upward, into the thick clouds.  The women gasped: a gash was torn open in the sky.  Utter blackness lay beyond, the gash fringed with infernal red flame.

“What is _that_?” Exa wheezed.

“The Void,” answered Shira, her voice shaking with fear.  “He’s opened a rift between dimensions.”

An instant later, they saw the spectral shape of Buthus, detaching itself from Dr. Smith’s body, hurtling upward along the red cord of fire.  With one last scream, the creature vanished into the blackness.  The fiery red conduit followed, leaving Dr. Smith and following Buthus into the Void.  With an almighty thunderclap, the gash in the sky closed.  The shockwave hit a moment later, knocking the women back into the wall of the nearest building.

“Holy shit!” Exa yelled.

Dr. Smith was swaying back and forth on his feet: thin, pale, half-naked in the freezing cold, blood still dripping from his injured left arm.  Shira sprang across the road, Cassie on her heels.  They caught Dr. Smith just as he fell, and he lay insensate and unmoving in Shira’s arms.

(vii)

“Ohmigod he needs to go to a hospital!” said Chelsea.

“No hospitals,” Shira responded, fishing into an inner pocket of Dr. Smith’s jacket.

“Are you mental?” yelled Exa.  “He could bleed to death!”

“We can’t take him to a hospital because he’s an alien,” said Cassie.  She glanced at Shira for confirmation.  “Right?”

“Right.”  Shira aimed a slender tube-like device at a nearby SUV.  With a _beep-beep_ , the alarm deactivated and the engine rumbled to life.  Shira ordered the three girls, “Clean it off.  Can one of you operate that thing?”

“Sure,” said Exa.  “He’s really an alien?  No shit?”

“No shit,” Shira told her, using Dr. Smith’s shirt to wrap up his injured arm.  “Now, please get that vehicle cleared off.”

The girls found snow brushes in the back of the SUV and had the windows cleaned off in a matter of minutes.  Shira meanwhile had bundled Dr. Smith into his long coat.  The four women shifted him into the back seat of the SUV.  Shira climbed into the front passenger seat beside Exa, while Cassie and Chelsea got in the back with Dr. Smith, Cassie cradling his head and Chelsea doing what she could to warm his feet.

“Will he be okay?” Chelsea quavered.

Shira said, “Time’ll tell.”

(viii)

Their destination turned out to be a chalet Shira was renting.  She opened the door, and the four of them carried Dr. Smith into the small house, up the stairs to Shira’s bed.  Cassie tried not to feel jealous, under the circumstances the most petty of emotions.  They undressed him down to a pair of pinstriped boxer shorts, and Shira lay a thick pad of towels beneath his left arm.

The damage was horrific, the inner arm slashed up badly, the flesh at his wrist and shoulder shredded.  Shira maintained a full medical supply kit: Cassie helped her flush out the wounds thoroughly and bind them with clean gauze.  They replaced the wet, bloodstained towels and covered Dr. Smith with several blankets.  Cassie wondered if any of that would do any good at all: Dr. Smith was pale as wax, his breathing barely discernible.

Shira fixed hot chocolate for all of them.  Cassie almost fell over when she realized the time was only eight-thirty; it felt more like two in the morning.  Shira built up a fire, casting welcome warmth into the spacious living area.

“Nice place,” Exa remarked.  She asked Cassie, “How the hell’d you know he was an alien?”

“I found out about him online,” Cassie admitted, too tired and strung out to feel sheepish.  “I broke into his apartment and found his blue box in the cellar.  He gets a mention on an alien-cover-up conspiracy website.”

Shira laughed.  “I broke into his apartment, too.”  She sipped her hot chocolate.  “You three don’t seem very surprised.”

Chelsea offered, “After tonight, I can believe anything.  So, what was that monster that was possessing everyone?”

“Another alien,” Shira said.  “An alien Dr. Smith had fought in the past.  His name was Buthus.  One of his dirty tricks was turning people against each other.”

“So, why did holy water work against it?” asked Cassie.  “If it wasn’t really a demon at all, why would it be hurt by something only important to humans on Earth?”

“Doesn’t matter where it came from,” said Shira.  “Buthus was evil through and through.  Anything considered sacred by any society anywhere would’ve worked against it.”

“Thank God for that,” Exa muttered.  “We’d have been screwed without it.”  She glanced across the table.  “Chel, what the hell are you doing?”

Chelsea had found a pen and a scrap of paper; as the others talked, she’d been making a few doodles.

“What’s that?”  Shira hopped up, grabbing the paper and turning it around. Chelsea had drawn an outline of an unusual plant: leaves and a single blossom.

“I don’t know, it just popped into my head,” Chelsea said.

“It didn’t just ‘pop into’ your head,” Shira said, eyes growing excited.  “It’s a message from the Doctor!”

“What the hell?” Exa laughed.  Nodding up at the loft, she asked, “From _him_?  For real?”

“You have psychic visions that manifest themselves through your artwork,” Shira told Chelsea.  “He used that ability to send you a telepathic message!”

“Cool!” said Cassie.

“If everyone could do that, Nokia’s stock would nosedive,” Exa laughed.

Ignoring the banter, Chelsea said, “I just draw whatever comes to me.”

“The hell you do!” exclaimed Shira.  “This is a plant that grows in the cloister garden at the center of the Doctor’s TARDIS—a plant that has healing properties!”

“Ohmigod, can you get one?” Chelsea asked.  “Will it help him?”

“What’s a TARDIS?” asked Cassie.

“That’s what the blue box is called,” Shira said, grabbing for her coat.  “Exa, can you drive me to the faculty apartments?”

Exa was already pulling on her boots and coat.  “Come on,” she said.  “Let’s get moving.”

(ix)

By the time they got back, Dr. Smith had sunk into a catatonic state where Cassie could barely detect a pulse even in his carotid artery—assuming he had the same kind of circulatory system as humans.

“Will those work?” asked Chelsea.

“It’s worth a try,” Shira said.  She held in her cupped hands a delicate white blossom and a pair of leaves, as green and shiny as holly.  She placed the vegetation on Dr. Smith’s breastbone, beneath his chin.

“Did you see the blue box?” Cassie asked Exa.

“No, I stayed outside with the engine running.”

“I think it’s working,” Chelsea said.

Indeed, a tiny bit of color had crept into Dr. Smith’s face.  His chest rose and fell.  Shira was checking his uninjured wrist with a stethoscope.

“Good, they’re both working,” she said.

“Both what?” asked Exa.

“Both hearts.”

“He has two hearts?” Cassie goggled.

“Listen for yourself.”

Without disturbing the plants, Cassie slid the bell of the stethoscope beneath the blankets and pressed it to Dr. Smith’s chest.  She heard a weak, thready _lub-dup_ , with a weird echo in the background.  She shifted the instrument to the left and listened again.

“Incredible,” she said, handing the stethoscope to Shira.

“I think he’s waking up,” said Exa.

Dr. Smith’s eyes blinked open to narrow slits.  He regarded the women without saying anything.  Shira moved the white flower closer to his nose.  He inhaled deeply, more color returning to his face.  Then he closed his eyes and settled back into the pillow, peaceful and relaxed.

“That’s all?” asked Cassie.  She had to admit to a certain amount of disappointment.

“It’ll take a while,” Shira said, fussing with the pillows.  “Sorry about the anti-climax, but there’s not much we can do for him now—he just needs to rest.”

“Oh-kaay,” Exa said.

“We need to get back to campus,” Cassie said.  “It’s almost nine-thirty, and I have a midterm at ten tomorrow.  I don’t think Dr. Fenner will accept ‘thwarting alien apocalypse’ as a valid excuse for missing it.”

“Will you be okay?” Exa asked Shira.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

“We’ll leave the SUV here,” Exa said.  “Here’s my cell number.”  She scribbled down the nine digits.  “Buzz me if you need anything.”

“Thank you,” Shira said.  “And thank all of you for everything.  I owe you my life.  And _his_.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Exa winked.  The three girls donned their outerwear and went tromping out through the snow.  The storm had ended, and overhead, clouds were blowing past, revealing patches of glittery, icy stars against the black velvet sky.

(x)

The Doctor slept for hours after that.  River set pans of water in the fireplace and on the stovetop, to infuse some humidity into the air.  She showered, changed into a pair of soft sweats, and settled into the couch to read.

She awoke at four-thirty, shivering with cold, the book on the floor beside her, where it had tumbled out of her hand.  Her neck ached from lying at an awkward angle.  The fire had burned out.  River got up, stretching and groaning, rebuilt the fire, refilled the water pans, and used the bathroom.  A check on the Doctor revealed he still slumbered deeply, his color much improved.  River left him, returning to the couch to sleep a while longer.

When she woke up again, River found the chalet flooded with sunlight.  Outside, a fresh layer of snow blanketed the landscape.  After breakfast, she worked up a sweat shoveling the path to the street, enjoying the cold burn of pine-scented air in her lungs.  Out here, with birds singing and traffic whispering out on the main road, the nightmares of previous evening seemed very far away.

At noon, the phone rang.

“Hi, it’s Cassie.  How is he?”

“Still sleeping.”

“How does he look?”

“Better—a lot better.  His breathing sounds good, and both hearts are strong.  I expect he’ll be awake in another few hours.  How’re you?”

“Ready to sleep for a year,” Cassie laughed.

“What about your friends?”

“They’re great.  They both left campus this morning.”

“How’d your exam go?”

“Fine—not that I was too worried.  I could honestly take exams in my sleep and still do okay.  And hell, last night put a lot of things in perspective.  GPA, not so important any more.”

“So, you’re going home for the week?”

“Yeah, my bus leaves at two, and I have a flight out of Manchester at six tonight.  I’m outta here, baby.”

River laughed.  “Have a good holiday,” she said.  “You deserve every second of it.”

“Thanks.  And look after Dr. Smith, okay?  When he makes up, make sure he gets plenty to drink—even if we can’t give him a transfusion, he should still have fluids.”

“Will do.”  River laughed again, and they disconnected.

She’d just returned to the chalet after collecting the day’s mail when the Doctor woke up.  Outside, daylight already was waning, blue shadows deepening in the snow.  River left the mail on the table—junk, most of it, plus a utilities bill—and went to check the Doctor.  To her shock, he lay awake, eyes focused on the steep ceiling.  On top of the blanket, the flower had withered and turned brown, the green leaves curling inward at the edges, yellowing and brittle.

“Hey,” she said, circling the bed and sitting beside him.  Taking his right hand, she asked, “Sleep well?”

He shifted his gaze to her face.  “Like a baby.”  He sat up, wincing at the movement in his disused limbs, and unwrapped the gauze bandages on his left arm.  The skin was pale and smooth, unmarked.  River gawked, unable to believe her eyes.

“Healing trance,” he said, setting aside the gauze and the desiccated plant.

“That’s remarkable.”

“Time Lord,” he said.  “It has its moments.”

“Did you communicate with Chelsea?  She drew a picture of the plant—I never would’ve thought of it, if not for her.”

“Not consciously.”  He rubbed his face, which looked tired, despite his long rest.  River saw to her dismay tiny threads of silver at his temples; she couldn’t remember seeing those before.  “How are they?” he asked.  “How’s Cassie?”

“They’re all good—they’ve left for their holiday.  They were incredible last night.  Cassie saved your life.”

“Yeah.”  He smiled, without any real happiness.

River squeezed his hand.  “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“How can I not?”  She barked a harsh laugh.  I stood there watching while Tomasso—”

“Shh.”  He put a finger to her lips.  “You were possessed.  You had no control over anything you did.”

“The worst thing was that part of me knew what was going on.  Part of me was watching the man I love being butchered, and I was powerless to stop it.”  The tears started, and try as she might, River couldn’t stop them.

“River,” he chided, then he sighed, wiggling over to make room beside him on the mattress.  “Come here.”

River kicked out of her sweat suit and slid beneath the covers.

“It’s all right,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close.  “He’s gone.  It’s over.  Everything’s all right.”  They kissed, then he spent the better part of an hour showing her just how all right he was.

(ix)

When they woke up, complete darkness had fallen.  River switched on the bedside lamp and checked the clock.  Almost seven—no wonder she was hungry.

The Doctor lay staring up at the ceiling.  From the look in his eyes, River could see he’d slumped back into that place of sadness and pain, the place she couldn’t touch.

“What is it?” she asked.  “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t escape from it.  It’s inside me.  It’ll never go away.”

“What are you talking about?”  River took his hand, kissed it, savoring the texture of his skin.

“The darkness.”

“Now who’s being morose?” she gently teased.  “And you were scolding me not to beat up on myself.”

“It’s true.”  The Doctor’s gaze shifted to River.  “I didn’t start out like this, all those centuries ago.  I just wanted to travel, to see the universe, experience things…”

River connected the pieces.  “But you couldn’t stand by and watch people suffering without trying to help?”

“Something like that.”  His face was moody, eyes lost in the past.  “Step by step, it’s turned me into the very monsters I’ve been fighting.”

“Like hell it is!”  River grabbed at the Doctor’s shoulders and shook him.  “Don’t tell me you’re shedding tears of pity over that fiend Buthus!”

“If I hadn’t tried to kill him on Hallux, none of this would’ve happened.”

“Would you rather have watched him destroy Hallux, knowing you could have stopped it?”  River was sitting straight up now.

“I tortured him almost to death and didn’t even bother making sure I’d finished the job.”

“He was evil, beyond redemption!”  River countered.  “If there’d been any good in him at all, the holy water never would’ve worked against him!”

“And you think that justifies what I did on Hallux?”

“I’d say it justifies a hell of a lot!” she shot.  “If he was doing on Hallux what he tried to do here on Earth, it would be reprehensible to let him live!  Maybe you had a piss-poor motivation, maybe you were just looking for someone to punish after what the Time Lords did to you, but it’s very hard for me to believe any argument that says letting him live was a good idea!  Was he a being who could be reasoned with?”

“No,” the Doctor sighed.

“Could he be imprisoned, or tried by a jury of his peers?”

“No.”

“And would he have continued his ways of wanton destruction and enslavement if he’d lived?”

“Yes.”

“Was there any reason, any at all, to let him keep living?”

The Doctor sighed, “Is it my place to make that decision, whether he lives or dies?”

“I’d say there’s a few billion people on this planet who’d be damn well grateful you were willing to take that burden on yourself.”  River softened her tone.  “I understand why you feel this way.  If you didn’t feel at least a little guilty, I’d be worried about you.  Those aren’t decisions anyone should ever make lightly.  But I, for one, am glad you did what you did.”

He smiled, wan and tired.  “Thanks for trying to prop my ego.”

“It’s not propping,” she said, glad to see him starting to return to somewhat better spirits.  “Doctor, either you keep doing what you do—which benefits more beings on more planets than you’ll probably ever know—or you withdraw completely and live like a hermit for the rest of your existence.  As long as you’re out there in the universe, you’ll have to make these decisions, and you’ll have to live with the consequences.  It’s your choice.  What do you want to do?”

He thought about this for a few moments, then his stomach growled a loud complaint.

“Eat,” he said, sitting up.  “What time is it, anyway?  I’m starving.”

She laughed and kissed his forehead.  “After seven.  C’mon downstairs, and I’ll impress you with my culinary skills again.”

“Which usually amounts to, what, buying things in shops and heating them up?”

“Watch it, Pretty Boy, or bedroom privileges will be suspended.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” he said agreeably.

River twisted herself around him and breathed in his ear, “Just you wait and see.”

**To be continued…**


	9. Angels of the Silences--Epilogue

Epilogue

_Walkaways_

As soon as Cassie returned to Ethan Allen, she went to Dr. Smith’s office.  Not finding him there, she made a perusal of the labs, where she found him setting up for Monday afternoon’s Baby Bio lab.

“Hello!” he smiled.  He was wearing his blue suit, healthy and healed.  Cassie ran across the lab and fairly threw herself into his embrace.

“Ohmigod, are you okay?”

“Never better,” he said.

Cassie held him close, feeling the amazing percussion of both hearts.  “You had us worried,” she said, letting him go at last.

“All in a day’s work,” he said.

“You’re going a little gray,” she said, pointing to his temples.

“Silver,” he huffed.  “I think it’s very distinguished.”

“Yeah, right.”  Grinning, she said, “So, aliens get gray hair?”

“It used to be white, when I was younger.”

“Get out of here,” she laughed.

“No, seriously.”  He regarded Cassie with warm eyes.  “Thank you so much, Cassie.  I owe you a lot.”

“It was nothing,” she joked.  “Just another day in the life of an Ethan Allen student.  I guess it’s true that a liberal arts education prepares you for everything.”

He shouted with laughter.

Cassie shucked out of her ski parka—the lab was warm—and sat on one of the stools.

“Can I ask you some questions?”

“You can ask… I might not answer.”

Cassie considered this unfair—after all, she’d saved his life.  The least he owed her was some explanations.  But then she had to ask herself: had she saved his life so that he’d be in her debt?  So that he’d feel compelled to give her something he wouldn’t normally be willing to surrender?  Cassie chewed the insides of her mouth.

“Okay,” she said.

He leaned against the lab bench opposite her, arms folded.

“You’re really an alien?”  It seemed like the logical first question to ask.

“Yes.”

“Why do you look… I dunno, like an ordinary person?”

“Basic humanoid body type,” he said.  “You find it all over the universe.”

“For real?”

“Absolutely.  And can you tell me why?”

She stared at him.  “Evolution works the same way everywhere?”

“Nice one!”

Thrilled at the praise, Cassie said, “So what’re you doing on Earth?”

“Visiting,” he said.  “It’s my favorite planet.  I’m here a lot.”

“I looked you up on a website.  It said you were involved with some military organization… UNIT?”

“Unified Intelligence Task Force,” he nodded.  “I was their scientific advisor for a few years, back in the seventies.  Disco, Cuban heels, double-knit polyester.  Good times.”

“Ew,” Cassie laughed.  Then, “How old are you, anyway?”

“In Earth years, nine hundred sixty-three.”

“No _way_.”

He laughed, the skin crinkling up at the corners of his eyes.

“You’re not doing bad for nine sixty-three.  So, where are you from?”

“Aah.”  His face grew serious.  “I’m afraid that’s something I’d rather not share.”

“Were you kicked out, or something?”

“And no Twenty Questions, either.”

“Sorry.”  Cassie was frustrated, but she knew she should respect his wish for privacy concerning his own past and background.

“So, that thing that was possessing everyone… what’s the deal with that?”

“Buthus.”  Dr. Smith rubbed his arms.  “The last of the Quinquestriatus race.  They were from a planet called Hallux.  Very powerful, ancient beings.”

“Why was he the last one?”

“Because they’d all killed each other.  In-fighting.  Age and power had made Buthus paranoid.”

“How’d he end up in the Mouth of Quincunx, looking like… I dunno, Rosemary’s baby, or something?”

“The people on Hallux overthrew him.  He was badly injured, weakened.  The Mouth of Quincunx contained a dimensional fold—a wrinkle in time, if you will.  He was trapped there and couldn’t get out.  But his consciousness was very powerful, and he could influence people unless the Mouth of Quincunx was stored inside psychic shielding.”

“If he was so strong, how’d he get injured?”

“Me.”

Cassie stared, mouth agape.  “What’d you do to him?”

Unflinching, Dr. Smith said, “Roasted him nearly to death in a nuclear storm drive.”

“And that wasn’t enough to kill him completely?”

“No.  As I said, he was very powerful.”

“So, what did you do… Shira said you drew him inside you?”

“When you destroyed the Mouth of Quincunx and his protective membrane, he was trapped in a vulnerable state.  He couldn’t escape back to the dimensional fold, but he hadn’t yet achieved full strength.  I tapped his power and drew it into myself.”

Cassie shuddered.  “I’m amazed that didn’t kill you.”

“I couldn’t have done that when I was younger.  It takes a lot of mental strength and discipline to do something like that.”

“He might’ve taken you over.”

Dr. Smith shook his head.  “I was stronger than him.”

“So, you sort of… threw him into the sky—Shira said something about a rift between dimensions?”

“There’s other universes besides this one,” he said.  “The space between them is called the Void.  I created a rift in the dimensional wall and threw him into the Void.”

“So, he’s trapped there?”

“Yes.”

“And he can never get out again?”

“Weeelllll…”

“Can he?” Cassie persisted.

“In theory, but it’s a very, very small chance.  And if he did, he’d come through in an even more weakened state.  Given enough time, he’ll eventually die in there.”

“How were you able to do… all that?

“I have certain innate abilities,” he said.  “Amplified by his powers.”

“So, you were using him like a battery?”

“Weeelll… yes.  More or less.  Yes.”

“And he couldn’t take over your mind?”

“No chance of it.  I closed off my mind to him.”

“That was amazing, watching you do that.  In a completely gut-wrenching, terrifying sort of way.”  Cassie asked, “So, why weren’t we possessed, too—me and my friends?”

“You didn’t put money in Tomasso’s wishing well.  Anyone who did that, Buthus could mind-control them.”

“I was scared... I was so scared, but I kept going.  Somehow, I could think straight and figure out what to do, even though part of me wanted to curl up and die... how?”

“You haven’t figured that one out?”

“Enlighten me.”

“Your friends,” he said.  “The three of you gave each other strength.  Friendship is something Buthus could never understand, so it gave you a protection against him that he couldn’t break through.”

“For real?”  That sounded too much like magic to Cassie, an enchantment or a fairy-spell.

He smiled, charmed by her disbelief.  “You all showed a lot of courage standing up to him and his minions.”

“Hey, I wasn’t gonna let them carve you into pieces—you’re grading two of my classes this semester.”

Dr. Smith laughed and hugged her again.

“Ohmigod, a real, live alien,” she laughed, giddy, unable to believe her good fortune.  “This is kinda mind-blowing.”

“Get used to it,” he said.  “The twenty-first century is when it all changes.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I don’t know… one of my friends said that, once.  I thought it sounded cool.”

“You’re so weird,” she said, grabbing her coat.

“Can we still be friends, though?”  He tipped his head to one side, flashing that charming, cocky grin.

“Sure,” she laughed.  “I like to think of myself as open-minded.”  More serious, she asked, “Uh, are you and Shira Nahar… uh, you know?”

“Could you possibly be more vague?” he teased.

“Are you… uh… you know, involved?”

He made a small, funny noise.  Cassie took it as an affirmative.

“And she doesn’t mind… you know… an alien?”

“No,” he huffed.  “Why should she?”

Cassie had turned beet red.  “Okay,” she mumbled.  “I’m leaving now.”  Outside the lab, she wondered, _How **could** she?  An alien?  Does she actually have **sex** with him?  Ew!_   Hurrying across campus, Cassie thought wryly, _Well, that’s one way to be cured of a crush in a hurry_.

(ii)

“And what happened then?” asked River.

“Well, we’re standing there in our bathing suits, me and this girl I’d only just met—we’ve got blood all over our hands, and I’ve got this injured child in my arms, and her leg’s held together with fishing net.  And now we’re surrounded by blokes with spears—”

River interjected, “And you said something like, ‘I know what this looks like—I can explain.’”

The Doctor leaned back in his seat, guffawing with laughter, eyes crinkling with merriment.  “You know me too well.”

“Obviously they didn’t kill you, since you lived to tell the tale.”

“Stop that, you’re ruining the suspense,” he protested.

A knock on the door interrupted the story.  River looked up, expecting some student, come for an afternoon meeting.  Instead she saw Anna Holland, and standing a bit behind her, Tomasso and his daughter.  All wore stricken, contrite expressions.  River could look none of them in the eye.

“Aah,” said the Doctor, swinging his legs down off the desk.

“Excuse me,” River said, slipping out of the office, past the unhappy trio.  A moment later came the sound of the office door closing.  River paced the hallway, staring into the display cases without seeing their contents.  She tried not to think of the last time she’d seen Tomasso, his daughter, and Anna Holland, tried not to think of how close they’d come to unleashing complete and utter apocalypse on this lovely planet.

The door opened less than ten minutes later, and the threesome departed.  River hurried to the Doctor’s office.  He sat back in his seat, feet up on the desk, looking troubled and contemplative.  Broody.

“What’d they say?” asked River, closing the door behind her.

“Just that they were sorry.”

“That was good of them.”

“Tomasso was distraught.  He picked up the Mouth of Quincunx last summer, just walking through a field one morning, getting some exercise.  He thought it might be important or valuable and had planned to bring it to the police.  But of course, as soon as he touched it, Buthus took him over.”

“That’s terrible.”

“I brought them here, Tomasso and his daughter.  They’d have died in Italy under Mussolini’s regime.  I took them decades into their future, so they could start a new life.  I gave them an opportunity... strictly speaking, I wasn’t supposed to do that, you know.  Interfere.  I should’ve just left them there to die.”

“That would’ve been callous.”

“So now, of course, Tomasso feels horrible for being the ringleader of all this damage.  He wants to turn himself in for the deaths of Lucille Cavanaugh and Debbie Katz.  I asked him what good it would serve.  He’d be leaving his teenage daughter with no parents.”

“What will they do, now?  Reopen the restaurant?”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor said.

A silence stretched between them.  The Doctor might be good at thwarting would-be alien invaders, but he was no good at the details of ordinary life, certainly not at solving crises of conscience.  People had to figure out those things themselves.

“So, what happened on Nelumbo?” River smiled, trying to pick up the thread of the story he’d been telling.

He leaned over and kissed her.  “Let’s leave that one for another day.”

(iii)

“Jonas… Martin… Smith.”

A polite burst of applause crackled across the amphitheater as a small, slim young man in a black robe bounded across the stage to receive his diploma from Dr. Holland.

The dean of the college kept reading off names in a dry, flat monotone.  Standing at the side of the stage, Cassie squirmed.

“Jennifer… Marie… Stanton.”

More applause, and the plump girl ahead of Cassie walked out to accept her diploma.  Who were all these students?  If they hadn’t been in Cassie’s dorms or in her courses, she didn’t know them.  They were all part of the same graduating class, and yet many of them were just names and faces to her, strangers glimpsed for a moment and then forgotten.

She cringed a bit when the dean cleared her throat.  “Casiopeia… Tallulah… Sterlin… _summa cum laude_ … in biological sciences.”

Face red, Cassie marched across the stage, listening to the yells and cheers of her family and friends, trying to ignore the sporadic unkind giggles.  Not for the first time in her life, she cursed the parents who’d saddled her with such a monstrosity of a name.

Dr. Holland shook her hand.  He’d aged a lot in the past two months, face haggard, without color.  Rumors swirled about that his wife had suffered a nervous breakdown and was now hospitalized.  Cassie tried not to think that Anna might have been with Tommaso when he’d dragged Deborah Katz to her death.

“Congratulations, Cassie,” Dr. Holland smiled.  “This is a wonderful achievement.”

“Thank you,” she responded, taking the diploma from him.  Unlike so many colleges, where the actual diploma would be mailed out later, after graduation, Ethan Allen diplomas were the genuine article.  Cassie opened it, smiling at the college crest, the wording in ornate Latin, thinking about the amount of work that the paper certificate represented—not least of which was maintaining a sky-high GPA and receiving high honors for her thesis.

She took her seat among the students whose last names started with the letter S.  A few moments later, she cheered when Exa crossed the stage.  On top of her black mortarboard, she’d used masking tape to form the words, “THNX MOM & DAD.”

Overhead, the sun shone warmly, the trees cloaked in delicate translucent green, as pale as limes and as intricate as lace.  At the edges of the cerulean horizon, clouds massed.  The weather forecast for the day, officially, had called for rain and a raw wind.  But in the early morning, the clouds had broken, the winds dropped, and temperatures rose.  The ecstatic organizing committee had ordered the ceremony set up in the amphitheater, and Cassie had been thrilled when the weather held.

At last all the graduates had received their diplomas, and the student body screamed and cheered with triumph.  After a few closing remarks and a benediction from the dean of the chapel, the recessional began: first the president and distinguished guests, then the faculty, then the students.

Joining the masses of students on the quadrangle, Cassie stripped off her rented robe, grateful to be out of the synthetic black fabric.  After tossing hood, cap, and gown into waiting receptacles, she plunged into the crowd to find her parents.

They stood waiting near the amphitheater steps: Mr. and Mrs. Sterlin, and an old woman in a wheelchair.  Cassie broke into a run, throwing herself first into her mother’s arms, then her father’s.

“Gigi!” she shouted, scooting down beside the wheelchair.  She couldn’t believe her great-grandmother was still alive, let alone that she’d made it all the way to Vermont for the ceremony.

“We rented a wheelchair van,” Mr. Sterlin smiled.  “She insisted on coming with us.”

“I’m so glad!” Cassie laughed, leaning over to kiss the old woman’s forehead.  Gigi’s head resembled a small baked apple with lipstick.  Thin wisps of white hair clung to her otherwise bald scalp.

“I wouldna missed it for anything!” Gigi bellowed.  “Congratulations, Baby!”  Then her rheumy old eyes went wide.  “Hey, Hot Potato!  Whaddare you doing here?”

Cassie turned around and stared.  Dr. Smith was approaching, a broad smile stretching across his face, eyes a little wet.

“Tallulah?” he said.  “Is it you?”

“Of course it’s me!” she yelled.  “Who else would it be?  Two l’s and an h—dontcha recognize me?”

He reached the wheelchair and hunkered down beside her.  “Not at first,” he said.  “You’re so much more beautiful than you used to be.”  He kissed her gnarled old fingers, and Gigi actually blushed.

The elder Sterlins looked over at Cassie, dumbfounded, and she could read their expressions too well: how could this seemingly-young man know such an old woman—a woman who’d been confined to a nursing home for the past fifteen years?

“Uh, Mom and Dad, this is John Smith, my thesis advisor.  Dr. Smith, these are Frank and Julianne Sterlin, my parents.”

“Hullo!” said Dr. Smith, straightening up to shake hands with the Sterlins.  “So lovely to meet you.”

“Thank you for supervising Cassie’s thesis,” Julianne said.  “We were so worried when Dr. Cavanaugh died.”

Unwilling to be ignored, Gigi reached up and yanked on the tail of Dr. Smith’s jacket.

“Hey, whaddever happened to that cutie, Martha?”

“She finished her medical training,” Dr. Smith yelled.  “She’s a doctor, now.  She just got married at new year’s.”

“Good for her!” Gigi bellowed.  “Is he handsome?”

“Yes, very!”  Scooting down again, Dr. Smith said, “What about you, Tallulah?”

“Me and Laszlo got hitched,” she yelled.  “Two kids.  His poor heart gave out ten years later.”

“I’m so sorry,” Dr. Smith responded.

Dry-eyed and unsentimental, Gigi told him, “That little scamp Frank is our daughter Marjorie’s son.”

“Yes, I see the resemblance to Laszlo.”

“Minus the pig snout,” Gigi yelled.  “None of the kids got that, thank God!  Then I remarried, a nice Jewish doctor, just like my mother always told me.  Two more kids after that.”

“You’ve had a very busy life, Tallulah.”

“And how!” she yelled back.  “You ever clean house for Passover, or get ready for a kid’s bar mitzvah?  Oy vey!”

He laughed and straightened up again.  Frank and Julienne stood with polite, flummoxed smiles pasted on their faces.

“Later!” Cassie hissed, hoping she could get her parents drunk enough at dinner so that they’d forget this bizarre conversation.  “Excuse us for a second.”  She pulled Dr. Smith to one side, far enough away from her parents to speak in private.

“What the hell?” she laughed.  “You really get around, don’t you?”

“I met her in New York City during the Great Depression.”  Dr. Smith grinned, rocking back and forth on his feet.  “She was a showgirl—she sang and danced in a music hall revue—did she ever tell you about that?”

“Yeah, we have pictures,” Cassie said.  She’d always found it impossible to reconcile the platinum-blonde bombshell of the 1930s with the withered little raisin in the wheelchair.

“She was fearless and smart,” Dr. Smith said.  “She loved your great-grandfather, even after he was terribly disfigured.”  He put a hand on Cassie’s shoulder.  “You’re a lot like her.  I should’ve seen the resemblance sooner.”

“I don’t look anything like her,” Cassie protested.

“On the inside.”

Cassie went very red.  “You’re so full of bs,” she laughed.

Dr. Smith hugged her.  “Have an amazing life, Cassie,” he said.  “Good luck with everything you do.”

“Any chance I’ll see you again?” she asked wistfully.

“Who knows?” he said.  “But don’t waste your time waiting around for me.”  She started to protest, but he cut her off.  “No, really, Cassie.  Live your own life.”

“Okay,” she smiled, hugging him again.  “Maybe when I’m a little old lady like Gigi, living in a nursing home, you can come and say hello, and I’ll yell something really embarrassing at top volume, like is it time for my stool softener yet?”

He laughed and laughed.

“So, what’re you gonna do now?” asked Cassie, lowering her voice.

“Keep traveling,” he said.  “It’s what I always do.”

“So, what about… you know, about Shira?  Is she going with you?”

“Maybe,” he shrugged.  “I hate making plans.  Spontaneity is so much better.”

“Tell her I said goodbye, and thanks for everything,” Cassie said.  “I hope I’m like her when I grow up.”

With a glance over the top of her head, Dr. Smith murmured, “Your parents are getting restless.”

“Yeah.”  Cassie felt reluctant to say a final goodbye, knowing she’d likely never see Dr. Smith again.  But then, she’d never see a lot of these people again, so it was time to face up to the farewells like an adult.  Besides, she had a headful of wonderful memories to cherish forever, and the knowledge that she’d be equal to whatever challenges life placed in her path.

A cold drop of rain splashed on her face, and she looked up, disgruntled at the sight of so many gray clouds.

“Aah.”  Dr. Smith gave her a sly wink.  “It wasn’t going to hold forever.  At least the sun shone for the ceremony.”

“Your doing?” asked Cassie.

“Consider it my graduation present to you.”

Laughing, Cassie gave him one last hug.  “You take care of yourself,” she said.

“You, too, Cassie.”

With that, she returned to her parents and Gigi; by now, Chelsea and Exa and their families had joined them, also.  After a few moments’ conversation, Cassie glanced back over her shoulder, but of course, Dr. Smith was gone.

(iv)

The president of Jahoo was a small man, maybe five-six, hair wavy and black, cut neatly to his head.  His face had a curious rubbery quality to it, his eyes muddy green and protuberant.  When River barged into his cabinet meeting unannounced, he hopped to his feet, licking his lips, frog-like eyes darting from one side to the other, as if searching for a means of escape.

“Aah—Professor Song—”

She lunged for him, grabbing the front of his ceremonial robe and throwing him into the wall.  A cadre of security guards tried to intervene, but the Doctor held them back without raising a hand.  River could feel the intensity of his glare, an expression that probably had shriveled Daleks in their metal shells.

Glancing around at the councilors and security guards, River said, “I’d like a word in private, Your Excellence, if you don’t mind.”

“Yes… ah… one moment, if you please.”  He nodded for his compatriots to leave, which they did, though with reluctance.

River let him go, and the president dropped to his feet, adjusting the shoulders of his robe, and trying without success to restore some sense of dignity.

“You, ah… I take it your mission was a success?”

“No thanks to you, you stinking, lying son of a bitch!”  She bit out the four words separately: _Son. Of. A. Bitch_.

“Professor… really, I can explain…”

River drew from her rucksack a small cloth bag.  Into this she’d swept the shattered remnants of the Mouth of Quincunx, returning to Tomasso’s restaurant the day after the Doctor awoke from his healing trance.  Even now, with its powers completely broken, she couldn’t bear to look at the loathsome thing, much less touch it.

“Here it is,” she said, pouring the fragments onto the polished conference table.  “Here’s your precious artifact!”

“Wh—what?” he wheezed.

“It was a prison for Buthus of Hallux!” she shouted, fighting the urge to smack him.  “You _knew_ it had a murderous effect on people’s minds, but you didn’t warn me!  People on Earth _died_ because of this thing!”

He wrung his hands.  “Professor…”

“Don’t ‘Professor’ me, you pathetic bureaucrat!  You cowardly bastard—you just didn’t want to deal with it yourself, so you sent me to be your errand-girl!”

The president’s expression grew fawning.  “Given your accomplishments in the field, Professor, we had every confidence that if there was one person who could recover the artifact successfully, it was you.”

“Spare me the flattery,” she growled.

The president’s gaze flicked over to the Doctor.  “Who’s that?”

“That’s the Doctor.  He fought Buthus and destroyed him, almost single-handedly.  If not for him, all of humanity on Earth would be devastated.”  River faced the president squarely.  “An entire planet of sentient beings, billions of people, and if not for the Doctor and some very courageous young humans, you’d have a genocide on your hands!”

The president had gone a sickly shade of gray-green.  “Uh, umph,” he managed.

“So, think about that the next time you employ an archaeologist and don’t give her a full briefing!”

Chastened, the president said nothing.

“I believe you owe me—and the Time Agency—a sincere and formal apology.”

“Sorry,” the president gulped.  “Of course I’ll apologize to the Time Agency.”  Still hoping to save some face, he said, “If there’s anything I can do for you—”

“Double my fee,” she ordered.

“Yes, of course.  Anything else?  There’s some lovely property on Jahoo—”

“You couldn’t pay me to live here,” she spat.  “Especially with you in charge.”

“Of course, we’re forever in your debt.  Anytime you need anything, please ask, and we’ll put whatever resources we have at your disposal.”

River thought this over.  A moment later, inspiration struck, and she reached for the Doctor’s hand.

“You can marry us,” she said.

“What?” the president and the Doctor squawked, in comical unison.

“You have that authority, don’t you?” asked River.

“Yes,” the president sputtered, “but neither of you are Jahoovians…”

“Small detail,” River shrugged.  “People get married on other worlds all the time.”

“Well, uh, yes, well, of course.  When shall the ceremony take place?”

“Right now.”

The Doctor was doing his best impersonation of a beached fish, mouth opening and closing.

“What do you say, Pretty Boy?” River smiled.

After a moment, he smiled back at her.  It was a slow and tentative smile, not quite reaching his eyes, but a smile nevertheless.

“All right,” he agreed.

With his pompous officialdom restored, the president preened.  “Splendid!  Ah, before I can begin, I will need an assurance that you have no current, ah, legal entanglements.  Professor Song, have you ever been married?”

“No,” she said.

“And you, Doctor?”

For a moment, he seemed to be struggling with some emotion, then at last he said, “I’m… I’m a widower.”

River’s heart clenched into a tight knot of pain.  She’d never considered that before: whatever wife the Doctor might have had on Gallifrey would of course now be dead, along with the rest of his people.

The president’s expression softened into uncharacteristic compassion.  “Very well,” he said.  “So long as you both freely give your consent, Professor River Song, and Doctor—”  he paused.  “Do you have a name, Doctor?”

“Yes, ‘the Doctor.’”

“That’s not a name.”

“Yes, it is.  It’s my name.”

The president cocked a disbelieving eyebrow.  “‘Doctor’ is a title, not a name.”

“It’s my name.”  The Doctor was growing cross.  “Are we going to stand here all day, quibbling about nomenclature?”

“I’m sorry, Doctor, but the legal code of Jahoo states that all parties wishing to marry must state their names at the time of the marriage.  Titles and aliases and pseudonyms are not acceptable.”

“There goes my cunning plan to use Penelope Ashe,” the Doctor smirked.

“Doctor,” River murmured.  “Can you please not be a child about this?”

“I won’t do it,” he said, sounding more like a five-year-old than ever.  “I won’t, I won’t, I _won’t_!  Certainly not to _him_.”

“What about me?” asked River.  “Can you tell it to me?”  She wondered if Gallifreyans gave their children secret names at birth, as was the custom in certain societies.  Names often were considered mystical things, holding awesome power, and so each individual would have a secret name as well as a “common” name.  If so, the use of “Doctor” might be the Time Lord’s way of preserving some long-lost cultural practice, an intensely personal link with his heritage.

He looked torn.  The president waited with thinly-veiled impatience.

River said, “Whisper it, then.  Only to me.”  She glanced at the president.  “Will that do?”

He looked as if he might start arguing again, but then remembering how much he owed her, he nodded.

Still dragging his feet, the Doctor told River, “You must swear, on pain of death, never to reveal this to anyone.”

Taken aback by his fervor, River nodded.  “You have my word.”

“All right, then.”  He gulped, eyes big and scared, and leaned close to River, cupping his hands around her ear.

After a moment she drew away, staring at him.  “That’s it?”

He looked wounded.  “You’re the only one in the universe, River.  The only one who knows.”

“All right, then,” she said.

The president asked her, “Are you satisfied with what he told you?”

She nodded.  “Yes.”

“Very well.  By the authority invested in me by the citizens of Jahoo, I now declare your union to be legal and valid.  Congratulations.”

River beamed, grabbing the Doctor by his lapels and reeling him in for a deep, wet kiss.

“Now,” she said to the president, “I assume you have someplace suitable where we can spend our honeymoon?”

“Oh, yes!” he said, looking relieved that River had opted not to inflict any bodily damage on him.  “I have just the place… the royal summer residence on the Helianthus Peninsula…”

(v)

Given the Doctor’s chronic restlessness, he surprised River by agreeing to a fortnight’s holiday of doing almost nothing.  Not that they were completely idle, but their wanderings had no particular aim or purpose.  The royal palace lay in a magnificent setting: the peninsula jutting out into a pristine lake, surrounded by green mountains.  High summer reigned, the air balmy, the tapestry meadows full of sweet grass and wildflowers.  Every day, River and the Doctor would uncover some new marvel: a crystal stream, a rushing waterfall, a deep cave, a spectacular mountain vista, an orchid of unspeakable beauty, growing amidst moss as green and soft as velvet.

They enjoyed the wonder of each other, too, in the solitude of the vast marble-halled palace, where the only other people they encountered were a handful of deferential servants.  The windows of the bedroom in the guest suite overlooked the lake: sunny, blue skies by day, star-strewn cosmos by night.  The pair made good use of the vast bed, experiencing the greatest possible pleasure in each other’s embrace.  One day it rained, and that was the loveliest day of all, lying entwined in the silk sheets, listening to the musical drum of water on the roof and terraces.

One morning at the end of the second week, River woke up to find the Doctor already washed and dressed—completely dressed, including necktie and his long overcoat.

“I take it the honeymoon’s over,” she smiled.

He said nothing, sitting in the chair and smiling back at her.

She bathed and donned her clothes, and they rowed across the lake to a small transit hub, where the royal hovercraft waited to return them to the capital.

“I need to get home,” River said when they were in the TARDIS.  Now that she’d been paid for this mission, she was itching to get her next expedition up and running.

“Yes.  I’ve been giving that some thought.”  The Doctor stood near the console, hands in his pockets, contemplative.  “We won’t always meet up at the same time, you know—it’s possible I’ll have experienced something you haven’t, or vice-versa.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” River said.  “Is it a problem?  Can we just fill each other in?”

The Doctor shook his head.  “No, we might be tempted to do something different, try to change an event’s outcome, try to undo mistakes—and that could have a catastrophic effect.”

“I see,” River nodded, grasping the problem more clearly now.  “How can we manage, then—speak in code every time we meet until we get our timelines sorted?”

“There’s a pretty low-tech solution, actually.”  The Doctor reached into a pocket of his coat and produced a small, blue volume.

River took it from him.  The book was leather-bound, the leaves inside completely blank.  He fished into the pocket again and pulled out a second volume, identical to the first.  “This one is mine.”

“So, every time we meet, we’ll compare diaries?”  River found this idea charming and somehow deeply romantic.  “And that way we won’t inadvertently rewrite our own history.”

“Exactly.”

She realized the outside of the volumes had been tooled to resemble the exterior of the TARDIS.  “Very fitting,” she smiled.

“That way, you won’t confuse it with any other book,” the Doctor teased.  “Depending how much detail you put in it, you might want to keep it away from prying eyes.”

“And of course, every time I look at it, I’ll think of you.”  River kissed the bridge of his nose.  “I’ll be a few days just getting everything down that happened in the past year.”

He grinned.  “So—home, now?”

“I can’t put it off any longer.”  River examined the console.  “How can I reach you if I need to?  Is there a way to communicate with this thing?”

“Actually, I’m not always in the TARDIS, but I always have this with me.”  He pulled out a leather slipcase and opened the flap, showing her a blank piece of paper.  A moment later, some words appeared on it: _Meet me in Paris, my darling_.

River burst out laughing.  “Psychic paper?”

“Isn’t it brilliant?  All-purpose identification, wherever I go, and my friends can use it to reach me, if they know how.  Have you ever been tested for telepathic capacity?”

“Yes, I tested at a level three, much to my surprise.  I’d never realized that about myself.”

“Perfect.  Just focus on the paper and think about something.”

River gave it some thought, and the words, _I think I prefer London_ appeared, followed by a small x.

“Where’d that come from?”

“Did you think about kissing me?”

River blushed bright pink.  “How’d a piece of paper know that?”

“The letter x is shorthand for kissing.”

“So what does it do if I think about more than kissing?”

A moment later, a vulgar stick-figure diagram appeared, and the pair burst into loud, raucous laughter.  The Doctor went very red and put the psychic paper back in his pocket.

“All right, all right,” he huffed, and River kissed him, delighted by his bashfulness.

“Take me home,” she said, sliding a hand into his.  “We can flesh out that diagram a bit when we’re back at my place.”

He grinned and threw a lever.  They stood watching the time rotors rise and fall, together.

(vi)

The lecture ended, and the students filed out of Agnes Varis Lecture Hall, streaming into the warm September sunshine.  Cassie shouldered her backpack and checked the schedule on her Blackberry: she should have just enough time for a quick lunch before meeting with her advisor and then heading over to her afternoon lab.

“Cassie… hey, Cassie?”

She turned around to see a classmate hurrying toward her, also weighed down by a heavy book bag.  Cassie recognized him, but at the moment couldn’t place his name.

“Oh, hi,” she breezed, hoping the name would pop into her head while they were talking.

“Hey,” he said, looking panicky.  He spoke with a soft drawl that Cassie identified as southern Californian.  “Can I ask you something a little stupid?”

“Go ahead,” she laughed.

Red-faced, he asked, “Do you know where the nearest laundromat is?”

Charmed, Cassie said, “Where do you live?”

“Walnut Street,” he said.

“Well, I live on Fisher Street, and I’ve been using this new place on Route 20,” she told him.  “I usually try to get in there on Wednesday or Thursday night.  It’s crazy on the weekend.”

“Oh, thanks, I’ll check it out,” he said.  “I’m a little desperate… down to my last pair of socks.”

“Where are you from?” she asked.

“San Diego,” he said.  “Just graduated USC.”

Cassie asked, “Do you have any warm clothes?”

“What, like a sweatshirt?”

“Don’t you have a coat?”

“Uh… am I gonna need one?” he asked.

Laughing, Cassie said, “You could say that.”

“So, maybe you could steer me to the right place to get stuff?”

“Yeah, sure.”  They’d fallen into step together, and Cassie asked, “Are you going to lunch?”

“Yeah, how ‘bout you?”

“Yeah.”  They walked along, and Cassie blurted, “I feel like a dweeb here, but I’m completely blanking on your name.  Is it… Jay?”

“Close,” he laughed.  “It’s Jake.  Jacob Rodell.”

“Cassie Sterlin,” she said, offering him a hand.  “Short for Casiopeia.”

“Cool!” he said.  “That’s a constellation that’s upside down for half the year.”

Cassie stopped short, gawking at him.

“Sorry,” he blushed.  “Astronomy geek.”

“No, that’s good… geeky is good.  Only one other person I’ve met has even heard of Casiopeia.”

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“My astrophysics professor,” she said innocently.

“For real?” he said, staring back at her.

“Yeah, seriously.  It was a special topics course I took last year, just for the hell of it.”

He kept smiling at her, and Cassie sized him up: about five-four, well-built, brown hair and beard, baby blue eyes, very suntanned.  His expression was warm, intelligent.

“So, vet school,” he said a moment later.  “You okay with it so far?”

“It’s a little overwhelming,” Cassie told him, “but I’m settling in.  Feeling right at home.”

“Yeah,” he said.  “Yeah, same here.”  They kept walking toward the student café.  Cassie looked up, smiling, and sent a silent _thank you_ to the stars.

**The End**

 


End file.
